It’s Amazon Sidewalk’s time to strut
There’s an unfortunate saying that’s become popular in recent years: “stay in your lane.” Amazon does the opposite. They have the resources and - but more importantly, the leadership that gives their people the green light to explore areas where they can test the future and expand their business.
(If you think vast resources alone would get you to Amazon’s level of innovation and experimentation, just think of all the giant, rich companies that used to be on the Fortune 500 and are no longer around.)
Amazon Sidewalk (AS) is the latest example of innovation in the area of smart cities, though probably not in the way you think. (The name, Amazon Sidewalk, is very unfortunate. It brings immediately to mind the failed attempt by Googleto install a surveillance monstrosity in Toronto.)
I often try to distinguish between the concept of smart cities as something that can be very useful to improve our lives-- and marketing spin. Sometimes, “smart cities” is a buzzword used in sales pitches to cities (after all, you don’t want to skip buying into “smart city” technology because… wouldn’t that make your municipality a “dumb city”? The voters won’t like that…)
The problem with selling this kind of technology to cities in 2021? Even if they had the money to buy it, they don’t necessarily have the money to run it. Besides, these gadgets don’t win elections. And finally, a city that can reliably find only your tax bill isn’t likely to be able to build and use advanced analytics to get value out of this system for their citizens.
Amazon Sidewalk turns the unworkable top-down smart cities approach on its head. Instead, they want to encourage new capabilities in communities, from the ground (or sidewalk) up.
What is Amazon Sidewalk, exactly? It is a shared network which connects any Amazon device like Echo and Ring to the Internet. On top of that, the AS Bridge allocates a small amount of bandwidth over a half a mile radius to any device which can connect to AS.
How might communities use Amazon Sidewalk? Let me give you a simple example. You want to help people solve “'I lost my dog” type of scenarios. For this kind of application, you’d only need to gather a small amount of data. You want to find your lost dog -- and the network will notify you on your mobile phone. This is something which would be easy to deploy.
One option is to use a device which can connect to your mobile network or cover the city with WiFi. Alternatively, people in a city could build a new type of network. That’s what Amazon Sidewalk does -- without an unsustainably multi-million dollar investment by City Hall. Instead, citizens can help themselves.
(Now, I’m writing this just a week after a column focused on new threats in cybersecurity thanks to AI. If Amazon Sidewalk is sparking questions around security, safety and privacy, I understand. Naturally, Amazon is building this service with security in mind. And if you feel like you don't want to participate, you just disable the functionality.)
For anyone with an idea, the advantages of having access to something like Amazon Sidewalk are not small. You can start experimenting by collecting data, analyzing it and providing useful updates to your neighbours (eg. Your dog is on my front lawn!). Thinking a bit bigger, a local school could use AS to collaborate on data-driven projects with other schools around the world.
You don't have to worry about the underlying infrastructure. Very quickly, you can see if your solution might work in other places. If you have an entrepreneurial mind, you could have a viable business offering, generating income.
In the same way, Amazon Cloud (AWS) allowed companies around the world to focus on building innovative solutions without worrying about the servers and server rooms and connectivity and ... the list is long. Amazon with a simple stroke delivered to every inventor the means of quickly testing new ideas to improve the lives of their neighbours.That’s really smart.
Remove the boring, unimportant stuff and provide people with the opportunity to innovate. You'll be amazed what will happen. And that’s the recurrent pattern.