Amazon Sidewalk finally launches in the US – make sure to get the antenna right!
What is Amazon Sidewalk
Amazon Sidewalk is a new low-bandwidth long-range wireless communication protocol enabled through the already deployed millions of Amazon devices like the Echo smart speaker.
Sidewalk services are now available for IoT devices to leverage the Amazon connectivity infrastructure claiming more than 90% of the people in the US covered according to their website.
What frequencies does Sidewalk use?
The network uses either 900MHz for long-range connectivity or 2.4GHz Bluetooth for short-range, enabling low data rate applications such as pet trackers, smart locks, weather sensors, and other devices that previously struggled with coverage on the typical home Wi-Fi network.
As one of the main values of Sidewalk is long-range connectivity, the antenna takes even more importance, and it is imperative to consider it early in the design process to ensure robust connectivity.
As a developer, how can I get started with Sidewalk?
It used to be challenging to design optimized antenna solutions in IoT devices covering multiple wireless technologies in a small package, but thanks to the Virtual Antenna ® components it has been made easy, even covering both 900MHz and 2.4MHz with the same antenna component, ensuring long range and long battery life with the same SKU (read all about it in this Application Note).
The design house Oxit chose the Virtual Antenna® technology on their new OxTech Sidewalk developer platform. The RUN mXTEND™ was chosen for its high efficiency in a compact size ensuring long range and long battery life, essential for the Sidewalk ecosystem devices.
You can go ahead and design your own antenna for Sidewalk using our digital twin antenna design tool powered by AWS. Just select Sidewalk in the Communication Standard menu.
And if you want to see how we can push the Virtual Antenna® technology performance even further on the Sidewalk long-range frequency using TRIO mXTEND™, check out this Application Note.
