I could rant all day about how much I hate the Ring camera and that when I flip them the bird it's not personal, but for now, I just want to raise awareness on the Amazon Sidewalk feature that is going live today. If you own an Amazon Device, with the latest update, your device will direct a portion of your personal WiFi to create a mesh network throughout the neighborhood. The benefits are few (which include better triangulation and tracking, and your amazon devices will work outside your home) and the costs are high (privacy concerns and siphoning off a portion of your own internet bandwidth that you pay for). Please read below and I would recommend turning off these features. Andrew Hayhurst https://www.theverge.com/22463257/amazon-sidewalk-privacy-how-to-opt-out How to opt out of (or into) Amazon’s Sidewalk network The new network will share a small portion of your bandwidth with your neighbors By Barbara Krasnoff <https://www.theverge.com/authors/barbara-krasnoff> Jun 1, 2021, 3:35pm EDT Share this story - Do you own an Echo Studio, an Echo Dot, or a Ring Floodlight Cam? If so, Amazon is about to introduce your device to a new type of network it calls Sidewalk <https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/21/21448926/amazon-sidewalk-ring-echo-tile-wifi-mesh-ble-location-tracking>, which is meant to help extend the range of its low-bandwidth devices (so that if your network goes down, for example, your Dot can piggyback on your neighbors’), and also to make location devices such as Tile more efficient. According to Amazon <https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/amazon-sidewalk-a-new-way-to-stay-connected?ascsubtag=[]vg[p]22227298[t]w[d]D>, Sidewalk will use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), the 900MHz spectrum, and other frequencies “to simplify new device setup, extend the low-bandwidth working range of devices, and help devices stay online and up-to-date even if they are outside the range of home Wi-Fi.” It will do this by essentially sharing the connectivity of your compatible devices with that of your neighbors. Amazon says that <https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/echo-tile-and-level-devices-join-amazon-sidewalk?ascsubtag=[]vg[p]22227298[t]w[d]D> Sidewalk will get switched on this coming June 8th (Tile functionality will be enabled June 14th), and that it plans to automatically opt in all the eligible devices. The company’s published list of devices <https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=21328123011&ascsubtag=[]vg[p]22227298[t]w[d]D> includes: Ring Floodlight Cam (2019), Ring Spotlight Cam Wired (2019), Ring Spotlight Cam Mount (2019), Echo (third gen and newer), Echo Dot (third gen and newer), Echo Dot for Kids (third gen and newer), Echo Dot with Clock (third gen and newer), Echo Plus (all generations), Echo Show (all models and generations), Echo Spot, Echo Studio, Echo Input, Echo Flex. Questions have been raised as to how this could impact the privacy of your data. Amazon has made a white paper available <https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/sidewalk/final_privacy_security_whitepaper.pdf?ascsubtag=[]vg[p]22227298[t]w[d]D> that lays out how customer information is being protected. But if you are still not reassured by this and would rather not participate in Amazon’s good neighbor program — as it were — you can opt out before Sidewalk gets switched on. Here’s how: