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Comment by laurent92 | Hacker News Reader

This is where Sigfox has a lot of added value: It is like a simcard, but you only pay per million packages instead of per SIM, and you save the trouble of customers trying to disable your hardware. If you build electronic components and the TV integrator doesn’t want to bother providing ethernet to the power unit, at least the power unit can self-report its location to the grid.

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Interesting point. I have also been thinking about how LPWANs could, in theory, be used to exfiltrate data from consumer devices without anyone noticing. I mean, it would be trivial to hide a tiny Sigfox / LoRa transmitter in kitchen appliances, washing machines, televisions, cars or whatever and claim that you need information like location and how the devices are used for "market research".

It feels like it should be illegal, but I'm not sure if it is or if there are loopholes. Do you, by chance, know of any actual consumer products with covert Sigfox / LoRa transmitters?

Amazon has built a LoRa transmitter (Amazon Sidewalk) in their Echo and Ring devices since 2017, it seems.

They’re not hiding it though. It’s marketed as something you might want to keep enabled and “help your neighbors” by sharing its location.

- “if your Echo device loses its wifi connection, Sidewalk can simplify reconnecting to your router”

- “customer support can still troubleshoot problems even if your devices lose their wifi connection”

- you “support community extended coverage benefits such as locating pets”

No I don’t, I’ve just be loosely afraid of TVs with sim cards, and since I discovered Sigfox I know that will happen someday. Same as the MH370 (I think) which went dark at transponder level but the engines continued to return the technical data for 4hrs.

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