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Amazon reportedly exploring wearables and home automation

Despite the Fire Phone’s unfavorable reception from critics and consumers alike, Amazon isn’t scaling back its hardware efforts. The company’s Lab126 division that develops Amazon’s mobile products is reportedly increasing its staff in order to further pursue its interests in home automation and wearables. According to Reuters, Amazon is in the process of testing a WiFi device that can be added to a closet or cupboard, allowing consumers to order relevant products like detergent with the press of a button.

In addition to Amazon’s household inventory tracker, the company is exploring wearables, but it’s being emphasized that neither product may not go beyond development. Amazon is currently the world’s largest online retailer, selling just about anything you can find at a traditional big-box brick store. By loading up houses with product tracking sensors, the company can easily keep tabs on its customers’ needs.

If these products ever do make it to market, Amazon’s energy draining approach to home automation sounds completely different from what Google is doing with its investment in Nest Labs, as well as the search giant’s Android-powered approach to home automation.

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