What Is Amazon Sidewalk and How Can You Opt Out?

Amazon has rolled out a new feature called Sidewalk, and droves of people are looking for a way to opt-out.

In a nutshell, Amazon Sidewalk allows your Amazon device to piggyback on another person's network if your device's connection becomes faint, essentially pooling network resources in your area.

"Customers with a Sidewalk Bridge (today, many Echo devices, Ring Floodlight Cams and Ring Spotlight Cams) can contribute a small portion of their internet bandwidth, which is pooled together to create a shared network that benefits all Sidewalk-enabled devices in a community," the company says. "Amazon Sidewalk uses Bluetooth, the 900 MHz spectrum and other frequencies to extend coverage and provide these benefits."

Amazon says the service is useful for simplifying device setup, extending low-bandwidth working range, and helping devices stay online when out of range of their home wifi.

The program has raised eyebrows with privacy and security concerns, and "Amazon sidewalk opt-out" has been trending on Google since it was announced.

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Amazon has instructions for opting out of (or into, if you'd like) sidewalk on your Ring and Alexa devices.

For the Ring device to disable or opt-out of the feature:

-Open your Ring app
-Tap the three lines in the upper left-hand corner of the screen
-Tap Control Center
-Tap Sidewalk
-Tap the Sidewalk slider buttonYou should see a screen asking you to confirm that you want to disable Sidewalk, repeat the step if you want to enable or opt-in.For your Alexa device:

-Open the Alexa app
-Open More
-Select Settings
-Go to Account Settings
-Choose Amazon Sidewalk*
-Toggle to disable Sidwalk

*(If you're not connected to any Echo devices, you might not see the Amazon Sidewalk option. We had this problem while connected to our network on a VPN.)

You will then have the option to turn Amazon Sidewalk on or off your account, so if you do want to opt in (or stay opted in), you can do that.

The video below gives a quick explanation of what Sidewalk is and how it works. Check out and decide for yourself if you want to be a part of it. It's been in the works for some time, but is in the news lately because it's set to be fully implemented.

Hopefully the opt-out guide above helped, and good luck out there!