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Amazon Sidewalk is a new long-range wireless network
- bonyt 7y agoSo, is this like a competitor to LoRa? https://lora-alliance.org/ https://lora-alliance.org/
- Junk_Collector 7y agoIt's the same market and in the same band so, yes. No useful technical details yet to know much about it.
- whoisjuan 7y agoCould be an implementation over Weightless-N which is open source, sub-GHz and works on the ranges this is supposed to work. http://www.weightless.org/ http://www.weightless.org/
- walrus01 7y agoIt has to be related to zigbee, zwave or LoRA, I don't think Amazon would be silly enough to reinvent the wheel. Probably one of the above with its own custom software stack on the tiny computer running it.
- OrgNet 7y agoopen-lora would be nice
- B1FF_PSUVM 7y ago"Amazon argues that Bluetooth and WiFi don’t have enough range, while 5F takes too much power and is too complex." Nice typo.
- garysahota93 7y agoI was wondering what 5F is haha
- mxuribe 7y agoOh right, 5F is the precursor to 5G - the prototype for it.
- oflannabhra 7y agoSo, this is a sub-GHz mesh. The big issue with sub-GHz, of course, is bandwidth. I am very confused by Amazon's radio protocols. Even though most of this has come through acquisitions, they are: Eero - Thread (2.4GHz mesh IPv6, 802.15.4) Alexa - Zigbee (2.4GHz & optional 900MHz mesh, 802.15.4) Ring - Z-wave (sub-GHz mesh, proprietary)
- zeroxfe 7y ago> The big issue with sub-GHz, of course, is bandwidth. Doesn't seem like a big issue for the IoT common case (switches, controls, alarms.)
- fra 7y agoUntil you try to do an over-the-air firmware update :-).
- tw04 7y agoWhy is that an issue? Presumably firmware updates are at best a monthly occurrence. Why do I care if it takes two days to push? Just make sure you have reliable resume and error checking.
- anoncareer0212 7y ago"just"
- oflannabhra 7y agoWhile this seems simple, most mesh network protocols use different routing protocols, network topography will be unique for every network, and even the nodes are ephemeral (especially if battery / mobile). All this means that your data throughput is highly unpredictable. Assuming that you have a border router (or similar persistent member of the network) who is in charge of disseminating your firmware over the mesh, you can either go with an algorithm that is unicast or multicast. Unicast can be tricky because you don't really want different firmwares running on the same network (especially if the firmware includes a networking stack update). It also takes a long time, because you have to send X bytes N times. Multicast can easily flood a network, even with rate limiting, because the amount of hops or rebroadcasts required can result in exponential growth in network activity. Simply extending the amount of time it takes is problematic. What if a device restarts? What if it drops off the mesh?You are definitely correct in that it is solvable. It is not incredibly simple, though.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- greatjack613 7y agoAs if we need another centrally controlled wireless network protocol. Boy is bezos smart
- scohesc 7y agoMaaaan, why in gods name do companies have to keep re-inventing the wheel. There's so many protocols and specifications out there already that they just have to pick one and improve upon it with the goal of making it backwards compatible with "older" versions of the protocol. Fuck this "all in one ecosystem" mentality. :\
- cameronbrown 7y agoYou're right. It's just the potential rewards of owning an entire protocol are far too great for companies to resist sadly.
- Judgmentality 7y agoI realize protocols and formats are slightly different, but the history of Sony and trying to invent/own formats is really interesting. https://www.fastcompany.com/1290466/sonys-long-list-format-failure-betamax-memorystick-micro https://www.fastcompany.com/1290466/sonys-long-list-format-f...
- vokep 7y agoAre they? What profit would companies have made if they'd privatized TCP and the internet as we know it never was able to take off? A world in which you build an extremely valuable network which benefits everyone, is a world where the profit itself is more valuable, the value of anything is higher.
- cameronbrown 7y agoMaybe protocol was too specific of a word. 'Network' or system? Arguably Facebook is an example of this.
- dillonmckay 7y agoNovell? IPX/SPX, right? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPX/SPX https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPX/SPX
- nambit 7y ago
- JohnFen 7y agoJust no. I'm not willingly giving Amazon even more access to my data.
- petra 7y agoCould Amazon force companies that this protocol - to sell only in Amazon.com ? Is this legal?
- the_watcher 7y agoA dog tag is... actually a fantastic use of something like this.
- diego_moita 7y agoMeh... I want to see the implementation first. Without a GPS doesn't provide too much utility. With a GPS would probably need very frequent charging.
- chipperyman573 7y agoA sidewalk doesn't move so you can use it as a GPS. Since you can be way less precise it will take a lot less energy.
- tzs 7y agoIf the communication is bidirectional, you could include a GPS that only turns on when polled. That way, the GPS is only using power when you are actually looking for a lost dog.
- roland35 7y agoLoRa can provide rough location data by tower triangulation, similar to our current cell phone location. Obviously not as accurate as GPS but better than nothing!
- the_watcher 7y agoIt's not a tracker, it's an alert that your dog has left a perimeter at the moment it happens. It's a lot easier to track your dog down if you start the instant they get out of the yard.
- tw04 7y agoThey only mention Bluetooth and wifi... Are we pretending zigbee and zwave don't exist? This just feels like an excuse to create yet another proprietary protocol.
- RandallBrown 7y agoIsn't this meant to work at distances an order of magnitude farther than Zigbee and Z Wave?
- tw04 7y agoHow would that ever happen? They're operating on the same bands and are limited to the same wattage restrictions as everyone else. It's not like they purchased some private band that they can do something unique on.
- syedkarim 7y agoAn order of magnitude is 10 dB, which LoRa can provide through coding gain. 10x the range for the same power should be possible with LoRa.
- roland35 7y agoZigbee can operate at 900 MHz giving you long range, although almost all common devices sold are in the 2.4 GHz band.
- dvcrn 7y agoCame here to say that. I am very happy with Zigbee and wish more companies would embrace it
- xenospn 7y agoI'm building something similar (https://gethuan.com/ https://gethuan.com/) using augmented BLE and long range sensors. Maybe if I get big enough Amazon will buy me out. Ok, back to work!
- seph-reed 7y agoA lot of devs these days have a similar mentality, and it's really, really sad. I mean, I get it, getting bought out is how you get money. Competing is not an option. But in the end, it's like the only options in tech are to innovate for free (ie not sell out, but get copied) or innovate on your own dime and get paid way less than they make after buying you out. Personally, I find neither of those exciting.
- oh_sigh 7y agoLooks interesting; installed. I toyed around with gps/locator collars(findster) but unfortunately the quality was junky and the battery life was horrible, so I had no faith it would do its job when I needed it. How close does someone with the app need to get to the tag before it phones home?(nevermind, FAQ says ~300 ft, which is really good. It seems like if you can see the animal, you can probably get it's beacon id?) Do you triangulate positions from multiple users, or show a general track of the animal over time? Are you partnering with big driving orgs (ups, Uber, etc) or parks departments to get more readers on the streets? What's your revenue model?
- xenospn 7y agoCan be several hundred feet in an open field, YMMV in an urban environment. On the other hand, I don't want to have too big of a radius in town, closer is better. There's a reason you don't really see dogs wearing GPS collars - even with LTE-M, the experience is still not good and I don't think there's product market fit. Absolutely - partnering up with Ride shares is on my roadmap, as well as sticking antennas in Drones and I'm filing a patent for automatically dispatching rideshares that can triangulate a missing pet even if there's no other sensors around.
- amingilani 7y agoLoRaWAN fits exactly this use-case and depending on the region, can operate on any of the ISM bands. This article is very bare on technical details, but I'm so confused. LoRa's made so much effort in this space by literally mapping out every single ISM band they can (sub-GHz) and reaching out to regulators where they couldn't find a compatible match. Amazon can't possible think 900 MHz device is "free" globally. [0]: https://lora-alliance.org/about-lorawan https://lora-alliance.org/about-lorawan
- ecoqba11 7y agoYeah, this looks like LoRa
- walrus01 7y agoIn Europe/ETSI domains it's the 868MHz band.
- ausjke 7y agoLoRa is a great technology, with longer range and 1/10 of battery usage comparing to its major competitor, NB-IoT. NB-IoT is backed up mobile operators, as far as I know, in China they even outlawed LoRa to pave the way for NB-IoT because the latter can bring revenue for big guns. I will be happy to see LoRA got more attention and used more widely. You can build your own LoRA network across large area with zero monthly fee once it is up and running, and you pay monthly fee to NB-IoT just like your cellphone plan, which one you prefer? Not to mention LoRA is technically better.
- dillonmckay 7y agoHow do you avoid the monthly fee? I guess I would like to know the hardware setup involved in a large area to avoid any fees. Can you give a theoretical infrastructure requirement?
- amingilani 7y agoIs your question about how to avoid monthly fees with LoRa? You don't have to pay a third party if you've set up your own devices. Your private LoRa network would be akin to your private WiFi network.
- mxuribe 7y agoOoohhh, you mean tags for real dogs...I wrongly assumed they meant tags to keep tabs on cheating husbands (aka "dogs")! ;-)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jedberg 7y agoDidn't they originally want to do wifi in the 900mHz range but couldn't because too many people had cordless phones in that range? I guess not many people still have cordless phones? Or they have the tech to avoid it now?
- Sanzig 7y agoThere's two main reasons to prefer 2.4 GHz to 900 MHz. First, there's more spectrum available (100 MHz vs 26 MHz). More importantly, though, the 2.4 GHz license-free ISM band allocation is worldwide, whereas the 900 MHz allocation is Region 2 (the Americas) only.
- kmfrk 7y agoAnyone know how this compares to Apple's U1 chip's Ultra Wideband technology?
- wmf 7y agoIt sounds completely different, like miles vs. meters.
- duxup 7y agoThat poor guy in Huntington Park who can't quite reach the other devices.
- asdff 7y agoPretty shit coverage around USC too
- jlgaddis 7y agoEven out here in the rural part of the country, the 900 MHz band is already so crowded and full of interference. I can't imagine what it looks like in more heavily populated areas!
- ourlordcaffeine 7y agoThat's actually pretty disappointing to hear. I wanted to try using long range ISM with seismometers. I guess I can use directional antennas though, as the units are stationary after all.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- baybal2 7y agoCan somebody tell why Amazon suddenly went into hardware? It by far doesn't seem to be their core competence
- nestorherre 7y agoDo you remember back then when Amazon only sold books? Yeah, me neither.
- scumbert 7y agoUhm, their Echo, Fire, and Ring devices are all wildly successful...
- ChrisArchitect 7y agoanyone in Toronto seeing the naming of this and picture of a dog was probably thrown for a loop because of Sidewalk Labs.....(Alphabet/Google)
- johnrobertreed 7y agoI'm just going to leave this little guy right here... https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/12/helium-network/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/12/helium-network/
- SergeAx 7y agoThat sounded great until "cryptocurrency" bit.