Amazon revealed yesterday that it was launching Smart Delivery Glasses for its drivers that would help them rely on their phones less and minimise mistakes during deliveries.
The new device, which is currently being tested, can be switched on when drivers park their vehicles. It will then help them make sure they pick up the right package, offer turn-by-turn directions, and give drivers stored information about a property, including whether they need to watch out for a dog.
The smart glasses were one of several announcements made yesterday at the Delivering the Future event in San Francisco. Also coming soon is a new robot system, dubbed Blue Jay, that allows control of multiple robotic arms at once. Some operational employees in warehouses will also soon get an AI-driven digital assistant to help them with decision making.
A delivery associate named Casey demoed the smart glasses and completed a full round using them yesterday. Asked if customers reacted to his new eyewear, Casey said that some had taken note, but that customers are “more interested in the packages than the glasses”.
The glasses auto-react to the sun to offer eye protection and turn on a flash for visibility in low light. Prescription inserts can be added for drivers who need them. They are paired with a vest with buttons, which the driver can use to take photos of delivered packages and raise an alarm if they are in danger.
“This product and this entire system are about making sure that drivers have a great experience and remain as safe as possible,” said Viraj Chatterjee, VP geospatial and WW Hub at Amazon, whose team developed the glasses with feedback from drivers.
Chatterjee added that the tech would be optional and, though he could not comment on specific roadmaps for a UK launch after the US pilots, the hope was to ultimately get the glasses in the hands of as many drivers as possible worldwide.
Many-armed robots
Also announced at the event was Blue Jay, a new piece of picking technology that utilises multiple robot arms to cut space used within a warehouse.
The innovation is targeted at scaling up Amazon’s same-day delivery network and is being piloted at a facility in South Carolina.
Around three-quarters of Amazon shipments globally interact with a robot at some point during the delivery process. A recent report in The New York Times said that Amazon’s robotics team plans to automate most of its operations to the extent that the company could avoid hiring 160,000 workers in the US by 2027.
In response to the story, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said that the leaked documents paint an incomplete picture. “The materials appear to reflect the perspective of just one team and don’t represent our overall hiring strategy,” she said.
She added that the company plans to “fill 250,000 positions for the holiday season” in the US. Amazon UK announced earlier this week that it was seeking to hire for 15,000 seasonal jobs.
AI assistants on the warehouse floor
Warehouse operations managers will soon also get AI assistants to help them through decision making on the warehouse floor. Named Project Eluna, the new tool will allow users to make plain-text queries to help with decision making in scenarios like technology breakdowns.
Aaron Parness, director of applied science in robotics and AI, said that Eluna could help in situations including when a specific sort line is down. “It can go and it finds all the times that’s happened before in all the other buildings and it can give you some suggestions. Our most skilled operators can do that on their own, but it would be time-consuming,” he said.
In terms of user-facing tools, Amazon also talked up the launch of its Add to Delivery button in the US earlier this month, which has now been used 50 million times, the company said.
The button appears on products that can be added in time to be shipped alongside an existing order. Users who click it do not need to check out again, but an undo button will quickly appear in case they made a mistake.
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