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Published on
November 11, 2024
8 min read
Amazon Develops Eyeglasses for Drivers to Reduce Delivery Time, Sources Say
Amazon is reportedly designing smart eyeglasses for use by delivery drivers. Amazon’s development of eyeglasses is part of the e-commerce giant’s strategy of ensuring smooth delivery of customer orders to their doorsteps.
According to Reuters, the smart glasses will guide Amazon drivers to, within, and around buildings.
Turn-by-Turn Navigation
Sources close to the e-commerce giant say that once developed, Amazon’s smart eyeglasses will provide drivers with turn-by-turn navigation through a small embedded screen along delivery routes and at every stop. These left or right directions will help reduce the seconds off every delivery.
Since Amazon delivers millions of packages to customers every day, each second saved will make a significant change. The smart eyeglasses will also free delivery drivers from using handheld GPS devices, which will allow them to move more packages.
Amazon’s delivery glasses project shows the efforts that the online seller is currently putting towards reducing the cost of delivering each package and increasing its profit margins as it takes on Walmart. Currently, Walmart is incentivizing independent drivers to deliver online orders throughout the holiday season.
Last Mile Efficiency
Amazon’s delivery drivers visit over 100 customers per shift. With more efficiency, the drivers could visit more homes and deliver more packages. Amazon’s driver smart glasses are meant to increase the efficiency of the company’s last-mile product delivery, which the company has termed as complicated and costly.
Codenamed “Amelia”, Amazon’s smart glasses are developed based on its current Echo Frames platform. According to the company, the last 91 meters of delivering products require drivers to navigate neighborhoods that require them to use more fuel. Estimates show that the company spends 50% of the product cost to deliver products to customer doorsteps.
The driver delivery glasses will be built on Amazon’s echo frames smart glasses, which enable users to use voice commands from Alexa and listen to audio. The glasses will leverage a small display located on one of the lenses and will be able to take images of delivered products. In September 2024, the e-commerce giant unveiled Project Amelia, an AI tool designed to help third-party sellers resolve account issues and access their sales and inventory fast.
A Long-Term Project
It’s not definite that Amazon’s smart glasses project will be launched in the immediate future. There’s a possibility that the delivery driver’s eyeglasses may be delayed indefinitely or shelved if the glasses don’t work as envisioned.
This could also happen if the company experiences financial difficulties supporting the project. According to a spokesperson of the e-commerce giant, the glasses could take years to perfect.
“We are continuously innovating to create an even safer and better delivery experience for drivers. We otherwise don’t comment on our product roadmap,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
For years now, Amazon has developed a huge inhouse delivery network that includes long-haul trucking, an airline, and suburban warehouses. By doing this, the company expects to fast-track customer deliveries and cut costs by lowering its reliance on courier such as FedEX and UPS. Amazon’s quarter three earnings report showed that the company’s shipping costs increased by 8% to reach $23.5 billion.
