My wifi, is my wifi. Yours is yours. Amazon has just gone to a new level that is going to upset many of us. Sidewalk is a new feature set that adds in a mesh network, and it adds the idea that we’ll be able to track our Tile, our pet’s collar, and more. The issue is that it also allows all the tech to tap into your neighbors wifi to connect to the cloud, should they not be able to connect through the normal method. You can opt-out, but this just isn’t right. I struggle with other devices latching onto my wifi, and even when I received a new Apple device from Keith, it connected to wifi automatically through my iPhone’s settings. NOT COOL!
Amazon is close to launching Sidewalk – its ad-hoc wireless network for smart-home devices that taps into people’s Wi-Fi – and it is pretty much an opt-out affair.The gist of Sidewalk is this: nearby Amazon gadgets, regardless of who owns them, can automatically organize themselves into their own private wireless network mesh, communicating primarily using Bluetooth Low Energy over short distances, and 900MHz LoRa over longer ranges.
Found at www.theregister.com
