Amazon's Mystery Lab expands staff to compete for smart home market

Amazon’s mysterious lab expands staff to compete for the smart home market

Tencent Technology News reported that the e-commerce giant Amazon plans to increase the number of employees in its mysterious hardware department in Silicon Valley by at least 10% in the next five years. %. At this stage, the department is testing connected home products such as one-click ordering devices. An obscure government document and people familiar with the matter describe Amazon's plans in detail, a move that further underscores Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' determination to double down on his hardware strategy.
Amazon’s recently launched smartphones did not receive an enthusiastic response from consumers, and the company’s heavy investment in experimental products also dissatisfied some investors.
According to the agreement reached between Amazon and the California state government in this month, the hardware department, which has developed electronic products such as Amazon, plans to increase the number of full-time employees to at least 20 people by the end of the year. As part of the deal, California will give Amazon $10,000 in tax breaks.
According to the agreement posted on the California governor’s website, Amazon will invest $10,000 in the department’s operations in Sunnyvale and Cupertino, California.
Amazon’s aggressive expansion as part of its testing of connected home products may open up a new battlefield with Google and Apple, people familiar with the matter said.
Technology companies currently view smart home devices that can talk to each other as a new channel to drive demand for products and services. However, some people question whether these products are too expensive for most consumers and will take years to become mainstream products in the market.
Amazon is testing a simple device that can be placed in the kitchen or bathroom to allow consumers to place orders for items such as detergent with just the press of a button. In addition, the hardware sector is also interested in wearable devices. However, sources also stressed that these products may never enter the market.
Regardless of whether Amazon will eventually sell these home products and wearable devices, the above experiments hint at Bezos's greater ambition. The purpose is to use these products to make Amazon an indispensable part of the lives of its 100 million active users. What's unquestionable is the growing importance of the hardware division in Bezos' overall strategy.
Bezos has been deeply involved in the research and development of the hardware department, from the launch of the first e-reader in 2017 to its release in 2016.
However, the debut this summer, which took four years to build, did not win the full house. Earlier this month, Amazon lowered the price of the product with a two-year contract to $.
Amazon’s stock price is down nearly % so far this year.