Since the announcement of Sidewalk, a new low-power long(ish)-range protocol, rumors have persisted that Amazon would be using LoRa as the basis for Sidewalk. The FCC filing for Amazon’s Ring Bridge device confirms that it houses a LoRa chip, and while this might be the best proof of the rumors’ validity to date, this news is not necessarily good news for the wider LoRaWAN ecosystem. For those new to the area, LoRaWAN is the open (but not open source) standard that defines the technology stack that can be used to create LPWAN networks. LoRa itself is the intellectual property of Semtech, a company that makes the radio transceiver chips that power these networks. In terms of nomenclature, every LoRaWAN device…