• orb360@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Not anymore with sidewalk and other similar corporate networks bypassing any requirement for the consumer to connect the TV to wifi

      • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazon-sidewalk

        How much of my internet bandwidth does Amazon Sidewalk require?

        “Very little. Sidewalk’s connectivity is distinct from your home Wi-Fi. If you choose, however, to enable Sidewalk on your eligible Bridge devices, those devices would use a small amount of internet bandwidth.”

        This sounds like it still needs your internet to work unless I’m missing something.

        • orb360@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          The connection isn’t for you. It’s so the TV can fingerprint the content you watch, and then send that utilization data back to the company.

          You don’t need much bandwidth to do this.

          So with no wifi connection, and a blueray player, if you play Star Wars, they can fingerprint a few frames, send them back to Roku or whoever over sidewalk via your neighbors ring doorbell, and know you played star wars… Even with your completely offline setup

          • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Ah i see, so because its connected to other devices in the sidewalk network, if my neighbor has it hooked up to wifi and mine isnt, it still can connect to the internet.

            Yea that sucks. I hate that. I have “smart” TV that i never connected to my wifi cause i use a pc for streaming.

            Next thing yknow theres gonna be lte modems in these things that they pay to keep on just to spy on us ffs man.

        • JeffKerman1999@sopuli.xyz
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          9 months ago

          If you don’t have a sidewalk bridge but your neighbour half a mile away has one, your device will connect to your neighbour’s bridge and send data to Amazon without you knowing

      • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Do these show up as networks on devices, or are they kind of hidden? I’ve looked before and never seen any open wifi around my house, but I am near a mall and lots of shopping.

        • orb360@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          They do not use wifi. They use BLE over short range, or LoRa or FSK on 900mhz over long distances. If you wanted to see them you’d probably need a scanner built specifically to find them but idk if anyone has made one.

    • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Maybe you’d disable it on the settings, but it remains enabled anyways. Then it would detect an open wifi and connect autimatically.

      Or maybe the software that comes with it is buggy as hell your HDMI framerate and resolution became affected.