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Amazon details its low-bandwidth Sidewalk neighborhood network, coming to Echo and Tile devices soon

Last year, Amazon announced its Sidewalk network, a new low-bandwidth, long-distance wireless protocol it developed to help connect smart devices inside and — maybe even more importantly — outside of your home. Sidewalk, which is somewhat akin to a mesh network that, with the right amount of access points, could easily cover a whole neighborhood, is now getting closer to launch.

As Amazon announced today, compatible Echo devices will become Bluetooth bridges for the Sidewalk network later this year, and select Ring Floodlight and Spotlight Cams will also be part of the network. Because these are low-bandwidth connections, Amazon expects that users won’t mind sharing a small fraction of their bandwidth with their neighbors.

In addition, the company also announced that Tile will be the first third-party Sidewalk device to use the network when it launches its compatible tracker in the near future.

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