Amazon Sidewalk Welcomes First LoRa-Based Devices

What you’ll learn:

• Amazon’s Sidewalk IoT network.
• Devices and sensors that work natively with Sidewalk.

Semtech recently announced the first devices outfitted with its LoRa technology had been released for Amazon’s Sidewalk IoT network. These include Browan’s motion and carbon-dioxide sensors, Deviceroy’s smart modem for solar installations, Meshify's water sensor, and New Cosmos DeNova Detect natural gas alarm.

LoRa (Long Range) is Semtech’s solution to connect IoT devices to the cloud for real-time data transfer and analytics. It’s a communication technique that allows for secure, long-range data transmission with low power consumption, coupled with LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) that leverages the unlicensed (US 902-928 MHz) radio spectrum for LPWAN gateways and end-node devices.

LoRa tech is well-suited for devices that can take advantage of Amazon’s Sidewalk—a a secure, free-to-connect community network that uses “bridges” or compatible devices (Amazon Echo, Ring, etc.) to provide cloud connectivity. Those bridge devices share a small portion of the user’s internet bandwidth, which are tied together to provide services to the user and surrounding neighbors.

Currently, LoRa is employed in more than 300 million devices, from wearable medical devices to animal tracking, with more devices adopting the technology annually. Let’s take a closer look at those new devices mentioned earlier.