Amazon Sidewalk Arrives in Canada Feb. 26: How to Opt Out of the Shared Network

Amazon is officially bringing its Sidewalk network to Canada on February 26, 2026, after a U.S.-only launch back in 2023. The company began notifying Echo and Ring users this week that their devices will soon act as “bridges” to create a shared, neighbourhood-wide wireless network.

The system is built to fix a common smart home headache: devices dropping offline when they are too far from a Wi-Fi router. By using a small portion of your internet connection, Sidewalk helps compatible devices such as smart lights, pet trackers, and outdoor sensors stay connected, even if your home Wi-Fi goes down or the device is at the edge of your property.

Put simply, Sidewalk is a long-range, low-power network made for basic tasks, not heavy data use. It uses lower radio frequencies to securely send small amounts of information up to about a kilometre away. This helps smart home devices stay online in places where regular Wi-Fi cannot reach.

Sidewalk also adds new ‘find my’ capabilities to the Amazon ecosystem. If you lose an item with a supported tracker, any nearby Echo or Ring device in the Sidewalk network can securely report its approximate location back to you.

According to the email sent to Canadian customers, and received by iPhone in Canada, Amazon is updating its terms of service to include this new feature. The company emphasized that the network is secure and uses multiple layers of encryption to protect the privacy of all participants.

The Opt-Out Requirement

But possibly the most important detail for Canadians is that Amazon Sidewalk will be automatically enabled on February 26. Users who do not want to share a portion of their bandwidth or participate in the community network must manually opt out.

If you want to disable the feature, you can do so through the Alexa app, says Amazon (we’re not seeing the option today, yet):

• Open the Alexa app and tap More.
• Select Settings and then Account Settings.
• Tap Amazon Sidewalk to toggle the feature off.

Here is the text from new Alexa Terms of Use, set to kick in on the Sidewalk launch in Canada next month:

1.6 Amazon Sidewalk. If Amazon Sidewalk is turned on, Sidewalk will use a small portion of your internet bandwidth and the approximate location of your compatible Alexa Enabled Products and Ring devices linked to your Amazon account to help keep other devices connected to the internet. Sidewalk can also help find lost items by reporting their approximate locations to the owner. You can adjust your Sidewalk settings in Account Settings in your Alexa App.

Amazon notes that Sidewalk uses a very small amount of data (capped at 500MB per month) which is roughly equivalent to watching 10 minutes of high-definition video. According to Amazon, over 90% of the people in the U.S. live within Sidewalk coverage.