Amazon may have started out by selling books and then becoming one of the biggest online retailers in the world but it has shown time and time again that it won’t shy away from producing hardware. The company’s Kindle e-readers are much appreciated and so are its tablets. The Amazon Fire Phone hasn’t been off to a good start but there’s certainly room to grow in that segment. A new report published today suggests that Amazon will now also be focusing its energies on the development of “smart home” devices.
Lab126 is a discrete hardware unit that Amazon runs in Silicon Valley. It works on experimental projects, with two people familiar with Lab126’s activities telling Reuters that the unit is now looking into connected-home devices.
The report also claims that Amazon is going to pump in more talent and resources into Lab126 by the year 2019, its funding is set to increase by $55 million and the overall workforce that’s on full-time payroll is set to be increased to at least 3,747 people by 2019.
So what kind of smart home devices is Amazon working on? Looks like its toying with quite a few such as internet-connected dishwashers, thermostats and other devices which will be able to “talk” to each other.
It is claimed that Amazon is working on a rather simple Wi-Fi device which will allow users to order certain products at just the press of a button. A source told the scribe that Lab126 is also interested in jumping on the wearable device bandwagon.
Looks like we’re going to see some rather interesting gadgets from Amazon down the line!
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