If you need evidence that operators’ reluctance to deploy carrier cloud has far-reaching consequences, you only need to look at Amazon’s Sidewalk evolution for a proof point. Sidewalk, in its original form, was a strategy for sharing WiFi between homeowners and businesses to allow for better connection and control of IoT elements. Now, Amazon is going to launch a business-and-government addition to Sidewalk, the Sidewalk Bridge Pro, that puts the service squarely in the commercial IoT space.
Sidewalk is Amazon’s mesh-network IoT strategy. It uses some 900 MHz spectrum to provide a link between IoT elements to supplement WiFi, and Sidewalk “members” allow their WiFi and IoT connectivity to be shared by neighbors. This enables IoT to work in situations where WiFi couldn’t reach a device, and it’s a good example of the benefit of federation.
Sidewalk has always used LoRa to create its network within a neighborhood, but whether a given location can even use Sidewalk effectively would depend on the number of neighbors who had compatible Amazon/Nest devices to act as a bridge, and were willing to join the Sidewalk community. The range of current Sidewalk bridges is short, which means that in some cases even having Bridge-happy neighbors might not be enough for commercial applications. Sidewalk Bridge Pro is supposed to offer a range of up to five miles.
Keep in mind that Sidewalk is an IoT network and not a generalized Internet service. The idea is to create a “community network” that lets users of smart devices share network technology so that their devices are accessible outside their own home networks. Sidewalk Bridge Pro makes this community network larger, to the point where it could be used to create not only smart buildings but also smart cities. The effect of this announcement is potentially significant, for Amazon, the operators, and IoT overall.
First, this establishes the notion of federated communications for IoT. Rather than creating a dedicated IoT network (presumably from operator 5G services), buildings and cities (as well as parks and other governmental and public areas) could create IoT networks through the creation of a cooperative instead. A smart building could be created by linking the networks of its tenants, and since Sidewalk assures privacy and security (at least Amazon claims it does) the result wouldn’t compromise security. The use of Sidewalk Bridge Pros could ensure that no tenant’s network failure could take down the collective’s network.
The second impact is that Sidewalk facilitates the use and reuse of traditional (meaning current residential) IoT technology. Whatever works with the Amazon Ring system will work with Sidewalk, providing that there’s a suitable bridge included. Most Ring hubs are bridges, so that’s not a major challenge. Many businesses have adopted IoT based on the same devices used in homes, including Amazon’s Ring devices, so this lowers the smart-building bar by allowing smart buildings to be created from smart businesses (or apartment tenants, or both).
The third impact is related to that buildings-from-tenants story; Sidewalk presumes that there would be “local” or “tenant” events and activities, and that there would also be building-level (and ultimately community-level) events and activities as well. What gets “exported” from one level to another would be under control of the Sidewalk developers who build the software.
Impact number four is that Sidewalk elevates the whole IoT story, from down in the device-and-network dirt where potential is delivered but not functionality, to the tenant, building, and community domains where software intelligence will focus. This intelligence, of course, is almost surely going to be largely hosted in Amazon’s cloud. We’ve needed an IoT story that focuses not on the Internet or on Things, but on things that people and companies value. Now we’re certain to get one.
The final impact is competition. Sidewalk has been treated up to now as a kind of extension of basic Alexa and Ring, a way of finding a pet in a neighbor’s yard or triggering a light from a sensor just out of reach of your home WiFi. Not exactly a dramatic market opportunity, in other words. The Bridge Pro expands the collective concept way beyond that, to the point where other cloud providers can’t ignore it. In fact, IoT vendors in general are going to have to start thinking about Sidewalk.
Right now, we have two “flavors” of IoT. One flavor is based on WiFi and designed for consumer low-tech installation and adoption. The other is based on one of a number of IoT protocols, ranging from the proprietary Insteon stuff to established commercial/residential IoT device connection standards like Z-Wave or Zigbee, and onward to the commercially targeted LoRaWAN. Amazon’s Alexa/Ring and Google Home have already induced vendors in our middle group to add Amazon/Google integration to their hubs. Wouldn’t it be likely that Sidewalk would induce that group to create Sidewalk bridges and Sidewalk-like federations?
I’ve not dug through the programming details of the current Amazon/Google bridges in smart Z-Wave or Zigbee hubs, nor have I looked at the details of Sidewalk development, but it seems from what I can find in casual research that you could already bridge between my middle commercial/residential technology group and Sidewalk. If a Z-Wave/Zigbee hub can talk to Alexa/Ring, then that pathway currently allows commands to pass. If Alexa/Ring is federated with Sidewalk, it would seem that would then extend Sidewalk to work with Z-Wave and Zigbee, and that could be huge.
Serious IoT for homes and businesses relies on those two protocols and the enormous inventory of devices they support. Bring these into the Sidewalk community, or any federation similar to Sidewalk launched by a competitor, and you suddenly have all the makings of an entire IoT ecosystem. No monthly charges for connection, no new devices, no need to learn new technology. A thriving set of developers and integrators too.
The obvious question is when we could expect this utopian IoT future, and that’s hard to say. Amazon hasn’t gotten regulatory approval for its Sidewalk Bridge Pro, nor has it released a price or availability date. However, the launch of Sidewalk Bridge Pro is such an obvious gauntlet thrown down to competitors that it’s hard to believe Amazon wouldn’t be pretty close to general availability.
I’ve always been excited by Sidewalk because a community network could focus the industry more on the IoT applications than on sensor/controller connectivity. In particular, I’d like to see Amazon and Sidewalk developers address the questions I’ve raised in marrying IoT with metaverse, my “metaverse-of-things” suggestion. Perhaps we’ll get some innovative strategies in that space now, and that could be critical in accelerating the pace of IoT, the metaverse, and edge computing.