[maurys]

From what I understand, each of your devices can act as a mini-wifi extender.

And that extended WiFi is public (to other Amazon sidewalk devices).

And that's useful if you have say, smart outdoor lights which could be out of your Wifi range.

And later to use the devices as a sort of pooled resource for things like search-and-rescue in a community? I didn't really get what they are trying here.

Apart from the instinctive privacy and big-tech worries (an admittedly big aside), this seems like it could be pretty cool.

[crooked-v]

If it was Apple or Philips doing it, I might be tentatively optimistic, but I just don't trust Amazon in this area.

[SahAssar]

Hearing Philips in this context made me think of the Philips Hue worm that theoretically could spread from lightbulb to lightbulb to attack an entire city: https://eyalro.net/project/iotworm.html

[asdfaoeu]

Tbf if you that was the case you probably aren't the type of person to install a voice activated microphone from them either.

[Someone]

“And that's useful if you have say, smart outdoor lights which could be out of your Wifi range.”

…and inside of that of you neighbor, and your WiFi can reach your neighbor’s WiFi. I have trouble imagining cases where that applies. The first part might apply if you have a large garden, your neighbor a tiny one, and you want lights all over your garden. However, that still wouldn’t help with the “your WiFi can reach your neighbor’s WiFi” part, unless that goes over the internet, via Amazon’s servers (introducing a new point of failure in the process)

I think the use case is more “where’s my dog/child/stolen laptop?”

[doctorfoo]

If this was an open network, it would be very cool indeed. But... I'm assuming it's not.