The e-commerce platform Amazon is reportedly developing smart glasses for its drivers to offer faster deliveries. The company wants to offer faster “last mile” deliveries, which are costly and complicated as they require navigating neighborhoods. This makes deploying more couriers costlier by using more fuel. By some estimates, half the cost of a product’s delivery to a consumer’s doorstep lies in the “last mile”. Also, the tech giant’s shipping costs rose 8 percent in the third quarter to $23.5 billion. So, the smart glasses could help the brand to reduce its delivery charges.
Amazon’s smart glasses could help its drivers navigate neighborhoods
According to a Reuters report, Amazon’s smart glasses will guide its drivers to, around, and within buildings. They will try to smooth the final stretch of an order’s journey to a consumer’s home. The smart glasses will have a heads-up display, which will provide drivers with turn-by-turn navigation. This will reduce the dependency of checking location’s address using their smartphones. They will show routes at each stop and will guide them inside the buildings.
“We are continuously innovating to create an even safer and better delivery experience for drivers,” an Amazon spokesperson said when asked about the driver eyeglasses. “We otherwise don’t comment on our product roadmap.”
The glasses for drivers will have valuable seconds off each delivery
Amazon’s smart glasses will provide left or right directions off elevators and around obstacles like gates or aggressive dogs. These directions in front of their eyes could shave valuable seconds off each delivery. With Amazon drivers making millions of deliveries daily, those precious seconds add up. The glasses would also free them from using handheld GPS devices, allowing them to carry more packages. The project adds to the e-commerce platform’s efforts to reduce delivery costs per package.
Notably, Amazon could shelve or delay the smart glasses indefinitely if they don’t work as expected, or for financial or other reasons. Also, they could take many years to perfect. It will be hard for the company to convince millions of its drivers to adopt the new technology for making deliveries. If they will work as expected, then the drivers will find them beneficial to make deliveries.