The ability to build Amazon Sidewalk devices using Nordic wireless technology is expected to allow developers and device manufacturers using Nordic products to focus on product design without having to worry about how to connect to the Internet.

Nordic Semiconductor (CEO Choi Soo-chul of Korea) announced on the 29th that it is leading the way in supporting Amazon Sidewalk, one of the most important innovations in the wireless IoT field, through its Bluetooth wireless technology.

Developers can now immediately begin developing best-in-class Amazon Sidewalk products using Nordic’s award-winning nRF52840 Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) System-on-Chip (SoC) and the nRF Connect SDK.

Amazon Sidewalk has two main types of wireless networks. One is a shorter-range wireless network that uses license-free 2.4GHz Bluetooth LE for in-home applications, and the other is a longer-range wireless network that uses license-free sub-GHz Industrial, Scientific, Medical (ISM) frequency bands for out-of-home applications.

Amazon Sidewalk, a short-range Bluetooth LE-based solution, focuses specifically on data privacy and security, and makes it easy to connect Bluetooth LE devices to the cloud. This type of network is best suited for devices inside homes or buildings. Nordic provides all the necessary functionality with a single nRF52840 SoC solution.

Amazon Sidewalk, with its longer range, is a low-data-rate wireless IoT network designed to be placed between your home Wi-Fi and your cellular IoT network. It provides greater coverage than your home Wi-Fi, but unlike cellular networks, there are no costs associated with the connection.

In the US, a longer-range type of sidewalk uses the 900MHz ISM band. Nordic Solutions supports this functionality via the Semtech SX1262 transceiver, and includes two additional options: LoRa-based sidewalk and FSK-based sidewalk.

Long-range sub-GHz Amazon Sidewalk can also utilize Nordic’s nRF52840. The Nordic SoC, the nRF52840, performs the application processor functions, provides Bluetooth LE connectivity for device registration and authentication on the network, and supports critical over-the-air firmware updates.

Key application areas include smart outdoor lighting and environmental sensors, utility meters and asset trackers, as well as appliances such as washing machines and tumble dryers stored in basements or garages, as well as healthcare and commercial devices.

As Amazon Sidewalk opens up to developers, developers and device manufacturers can focus on designing their products without worrying about how to connect to the Internet, and millions of devices are already being built. Each device that acts as a Sidewalk Bridge shares only a small portion of the Internet bandwidth to serve all Amazon Sidewalk end devices. This enables a much wider range of use cases, such as asset tracking and locating items.

“Amazon Sidewalk represents the future of wireless IoT development for the consumer space,” says Finn Boetius, product marketing engineer at Nordic Semiconductor. “Amazon is uniquely positioned to further expand the scope and market potential of wireless IoT applications by upgrading their existing infrastructure based on widely deployed Amazon Echo and Ring devices, including the ability for consumers to easily add Amazon Sidewalk devices to their network using their smartphones, using Bluetooth.”

Amazon Sidewalk will first open in the United States.