Amazon Gearing Up For Assault On Smart Home Market

Amazon has started contacting developers to work on unidentified smart home projects that would give it ammo to fight against the likes of Apple and Google in the competitive space.

A person familiar with the conversations between Amazon and developers told Forbes that the firm is “looking at this space very intently” and it comes just a day after a reported $55 million [£33.7 million] investment in the sector.

That investment will be spent over the coming five years on the Lab126 unit known for producing Kindle devices and the Fire phone and with it comes the promise of 798 extra jobs by 2019.

Amazon is being very secretive over its plans for the smart home and the only details that came out yesterday mentioned a small device linked to the Internet by Wi-Fi that could be placed in cupboards and allow items to be ordered online when they run out, such as detergent.

Lab126

Wearables could also be part of Lab126’s remit over the coming months and years though it has already been reported that this element is very much up in the air and products might never hit the market.

Spending this much on the unit is small fry compared to Google’s acquisition splurge that saw it spend $3.2 billion [£1.96 billion] on Nest at the start of the year and Apple’s HomeKit had a high profile release as part of iOS 8 earlier on this month.

All three want to be at the forefront of an Internet of Things market that is on track to be worth anything up to £4 trillion by 2020, if IDC figures are to be believed, and it goes to reinforce the huge sums being spent by the likes of Google.