from the Quis-Custodiet-Ipsos-Custodes? dept.
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.
[...] "Echos are going to serve as bridges, that's going to be a big thing for us," Arana said. "You can imagine the number of customers that will benefit from that feature. And for us to be able to have that kind of service, that's super important. And Tile is going to be the first edge device, the first Sidewalk-enabled device, and they'll be able to track your valuables, your wallet, whatever it is that you love."
And in many ways, that's the promise of Sidewalk. You share a bit of bandwidth with your neighbors and in return, you get the ability to connect to a smart light in your garden that would otherwise be outside of your own network, for example, or get motion sensor alerts even when your home Wi-Fi is out, or to track your lost dog who is wearing a smart pet finder (something Amazon showed off when it first announced Sidewalk).
In today's whitepaper, the team notes that Amazon will make sure that shared bandwidth is capped and provide a simple on/off control for compatible devices to give users the choice to participate. The maximum bandwidth a device can use is capped at 500MB and the bandwidth between a bridge and the Sidewalk server in the cloud won't exceed 80Kbps.
(Score: 2) by Zinnia Zirconium on Thursday September 24 2020, @04:02AM (4 children)
Sure it's only 42% faster than dial-up but just think of what you can do with 80 kbps:
1. SSH terminal session
2. Browse simple web pages
3. Play 64 kbps audio
I'm convinced! Gimme gimme gimme.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday September 24 2020, @04:17AM (3 children)
Plus you can load and run one of these [js1k.com] in under 15 seconds.
(Score: 2) by Zinnia Zirconium on Thursday September 24 2020, @04:23AM (2 children)
20KB compressed page takes 2 seconds to load at 80kbps. I'm doing pretty well thanks and I'm not even doing minification. Might want to turn off images though and video is a no go.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @01:54PM (1 child)
You're assuming the page won't be laden with ads specific to your exact location to within 50 meters.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Zinnia Zirconium on Thursday September 24 2020, @03:30PM
I know the page won't be laden with ads because I'm talking about my own site and I don't run any ads. It's part of my plan not to make any money.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Thursday September 24 2020, @04:53AM
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(Score: 5, Informative) by Booga1 on Thursday September 24 2020, @07:38AM (3 children)
How generous of Amazon to share your bandwdith, expose the rest of your network to random devices, and volunteer your ISP to host their network. You don't mind paying for it, right?
It was bad enough that you never truly controlled the devices, but now they're showing everyone who owns them. Those devices are Amazon's access points and now they're monetizing the
suckerscustomers that bought their products.(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:51AM
Can it track my privacy?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:54AM (1 child)
Yep, I'm sure this thing is "totally secure" with no possibility for abuse.
Being low bandwidth, it's a super easy target for DDoS. Beyond that, how much infrastructure is between your indoor control and that outdoor garden light that hops through your neighbors' ring camera to reach your home controller?
I've got about a dozen devices controlled by my Google Home and cloud based relay switches - absolutely NONE of them are anything I would call important, let alone critical. It's a network of toys, tabletop lamps, a decorative water fountain.
Anybody who puts an access control lock on this kind of network... gets what they deserve.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @06:30PM
It is designed for abuse by it's manufacturer. Abuse by interlopers is collateral damage and competition for Amazon. Also, anyone who has Google Home can't be smug about anything.