Amazon.com Inc. announced today that it will enable developers to use its Sidewalk wireless network, which allows connected devices such as smart home appliances to access the internet.

Many consumers have devices from Amazon’s Echo smart speaker series in their homes. Since 2019, Echo customers can choose to make a small portion of their home networks’ bandwidth available to other users. That shared bandwidth is what powers Amazon’s Sidewalk network.

The network, which Amazon says covers more than 90% of the U.S. population, provides internet access for connected devices. Currently, only a relatively limited number of devices can use Sidewalk. Amazon now hopes to change by making the network more widely accessible to developers and hardware makers. 

Devices can use Sidewalk for a variety of tasks. According to the company, the network enables gadgets such as smart home appliances to continue operating even if the home network to which they’re linked experiences an outage. Moreover, Sidewalk can provide connectivity for outdoor devices that are beyond the reach of a user’s router.

There are other services that provide outdoor network access for connected devices. However, their price is often prohibitive for consumer use cases. Amazon’s Sidewalk network is reportedly free, which makes it more practical for device manufacturers to implement.

“Many types of connected devices have been limited by the range of Wi-Fi and the cost of cellular technology, which has hindered the ability to connect devices like environmental sensors, leak detectors and smart locks,” said Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services. “Sidewalk is designed to provide a secure, low-cost way to invent and connect a whole new range of devices, and we can’t wait to see what developers build.”

Amazon will make test kits available to developers at no charge for network evaluation purposes. Using the test kits, a company can measure the amount of bandwidth Sidewalk provides in the different locations where it’s available. Amazon envisions device makers using the measurements they collect to inform the development of new connected devices.

The company is also working to encourage new product development in other ways. Its cloud unit Amazon Web Services Inc. today debuted an integration between Sidewalk and AWS IoT Core, its service for linking connected devices to the cloud. The service makes it possible to remotely configure and update devices. Additionally, IoT Core allows internet-connected gadgets to access applications hosted in the AWS cloud.

Amazon sees developers using Sidewalk to power not only connected devices but also new mobile apps. To realize that vision, the company is releasing an open-source toolkit called the Mobile SDK for iOS and Android. It will ease the task of integrating Sidewalk with iOS and Android apps.

Companies building Sidewalk-compatible devices can speed up their work by purchasing hardware development kits from Silicon Laboratories Inc., Texas Instruments Inc. and Nordic Semiconductor ASA. A hardware development kit is a kind of prepackaged device template. It allows manufacturers to design new products faster than if they had to build everything from scratch.

Silicon Laboratories, Texas Instruments and Nordic Semiconductor ASA are also offering software development kits. Their SDKs promise to simplify the task of building software for new Sidewalk-compatible devices. Additionally, they can make it easier for developers to integrate existing devices with Amazon’s free wireless network.

Photo: Amazon