If You Use Alexa – You Need To Know This!

After a long day of taking orders at work, nothing’s better than getting home and getting to boss Alexa around!

Try it – say “Alexa, play WILD 101!”

It’s fun. It’s easy. And it makes you feel super techy.

But Amazon is preparing to launch a new service that we are not so sure about just yet.

It’s called Amazon Sidewalk & in a nutshell, it steals a little bit of your Internet bandwidth to use for your neighbor’s devices if their Internet goes down.

Say what?

Apparently, phones & computers are unable to connect to it, just devices like Alexa & security cameras.

Here is what Amazon has to say:

Amazon Sidewalk is a shared network that helps devices work better. Operated by Amazon at no charge to customers, Sidewalk can help simplify new device setup, extend the low-bandwidth working range of devices to help find pets or valuables with Tile trackers, and help devices stay online even if they are outside the range of their home wifi. In the future, Sidewalk will support a range of experiences from using Sidewalk-enabled devices, such as smart security and lighting and diagnostics for appliances and tools.

If you use Alexa, Echo or any other Amazon device, it will happen on June 8th automatically unless you opt out.

That means you have ONE WEEK to opt out of an experiment that messes with your personal privacy and security.

More from Amazon:

How will Amazon Sidewalk impact my personal wireless bandwidth and data usage?

The maximum bandwidth of a Sidewalk Bridge to the Sidewalk server is 80Kbps, which is about 1/40th of the bandwidth used to stream a typical high definition video. Today, when you share your Bridge’s connection with Sidewalk, total monthly data used by Sidewalk, per account, is capped at 500MB, which is equivalent to streaming about 10 minutes of high definition video.

 If you’re not down with Amazon Sidewalk, here’s how to turn it off:

1.        Opening the Alexa app

2.        Select “More” and select “Settings”

3.        Select “Account Settings”

4.        Select “Amazon Sidewalk”

5.        Switch the blue toggle from “Enabled” to “Disabled”