Amazon working on strange smart glasses, other hardware for this holiday season

Amazon has been moving incredibly fast over the last year, releasing a series of Alexa-enabled products which is rapidly cementing itself as the smart device leader in the field of digital personal assistants, all designed to drive its shopping retail empire.

Granted most of these devices looked really bizarre when they leaked, but a bit like the Echo Show make a whole lot of sense after they are fully revealed.

Such may be the case for a new set of products said to be currently in development by their skunkworks unit,  Lab126.

The company is said to be working on a set of smart glasses which seem a major step back from the current state of the art, only featuring a microphone and bone conduction speaker, and intended to connect to your phone and bring Alexa to your ear effortlessly.  The glasses (mocked up above) are said to otherwise be free from a camera or display, and look like a completely normal set. While this would seem to reduce the functionality of the devices, it would help the company bring the glasses to market much faster, supposedly this holiday season, offer longer battery life, and make them a lot more acceptable to the privacy-shy public. Despite their simplicity, the glasses are said to have been developed by Google Glass founder Babak Parviz, hired away by Amazon in 2014, suggesting it incorporates lessons learned from that failed venture.

Another product coming to market very soon from the company is said to be a Nest-like connected security camera that can be controlled by Alexa-enabled Echo products, including showing its video feed on the Echo Show screen. It would also notify you when your packages have been delivered, fulfilling Amazon’s main mission in life.

Do our readers see the appeal of these products (yet)? Let us know below.