What Is Amazon Sidewalk, and How Do You Disable It?

Wouldn’t it be great if your new devices automatically connected to your network and were ready to go in seconds, no fiddling with logins or security codes? And they worked for an entire neighborhood or community?

- ERIC GRIFFITH

That’s the potential of Amazon Sidewalk, a feature Amazon activated by default (as of June 8 in the US) on a number of its devices. It turns most Amazon Echo smart speakers and smart displays made after 2018, plus a few Ring by Amazon smart doorbells and cameras, into a Sidewalk Bridge (or Gateway). Specifically, the following devices are compatible:

• Ring Floodlight Cam (2019)

• Ring Spotlight Cam Wired (2019)

• Ring Spotlight Cam Mount (2019), Echo (3rd gen and newer)

• Echo Dot (3rd gen and newer)

• Echo Dot for Kids (3rd gen and newer)

• Echo Dot with Clock (3rd gen and newer)

• Echo Plus (all generations)

• Echo Show (all models and generations)

• Echo Spot

• Echo Studio

• Echo Input • Echo Flex

WHAT IS AN AMAZON SIDEWALK BRIDGE?

A Sidewalk Bridge fills in the gaps between your home network’s internet connection and devices using low-power wireless connections, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and sections of the 900MHz radio spectrum used for Long Range (LoRa). It’s similar to what you can get with some low-power smart home network protocols—Zigbee and Z-Wave, for example—but those require you to buy a smart home hub (in fact, some Echo devices act as Z-Wave hubs).

But Sidewalk is simply there: a low-energy network that surrounds your residence. The potential range of the radio spectrum it uses is half a mile, or even more with some setups and locations. The 900MHz LoRa, though, is found only in the newer, sphere-shaped Amazon Echoes, as well as the latest Echo Show 10 and the Ring Spotlight and Ring Floodlight, according to CNET. Amazon hasn’t (yet) built Sidewalk into its Eero mesh devices.