SEATTLE — Amazon is distributing “smart” glasses to delivery drivers. By providing real-time navigation instructions and package details directly in a driver’s field of view, the glasses boost delivery efficiency and help keep drivers focused on their surroundings, the company said.
Amazon said it intends to deploy 5,000 delivery glasses this year and have more than 20,000 on the road by the end of 2027.
“If you’ve ever watched a driver deliver a package, you know how much information they need at every stop,” according to an Amazon blog post outlining the program. “Today, drivers rely on a handheld delivery device to confirm addresses, check delivery instructions, and snap proof-of-delivery photos. It works, but we thought we could make the experience even better. So we invented one.”
Amazon began distributing the glasses last year to roughly 300 delivery service partners, and the feedback has been “strong,” Amazon said. Using the glasses is fully optional for the delivery service partners and their drivers, according to the company. Amazon doesn’t directly employ the drivers who deliver its packages in Amazon-branded vans and uniforms. Instead, it contracts with ostensibly independent companies that hire drivers and manage package deliveries from inside Amazon facilities.
'All without needing to reach for a [handheld] device'
The glasses guide drivers from the moment they park the van, confirming the right packages are in the van, surfacing customer delivery preferences on the walk to the delivery location, and capturing proof of delivery automatically. “All without needing to reach for a delivery device,” Amazon said. The display automatically turns off when a van is in motion.
Amazon acknowledges that the spread of smart glasses raises privacy and security concerns, and the company says privacy is a priority with the technology. Images captured by the glasses are automatically anonymized and faces and license plates are blurred. The glasses do not capture video or audio, according to the company.
The glasses are part of Amazon’s ongoing efforts to make deliveries safer and more efficient, the company said.
“As we do with anything we build, we work backwards from customer needs, invent on their behalf, listen to feedback, and constantly improve. In this case, hundreds of drivers shaped the design through ride-alongs, lab tests, and pilot programs, and their feedback led to improvements like moving the computing hardware and battery off the headset into a small controller worn in the delivery vest to improve comfort over a full shift.
“That small controller houses a swappable battery for all-day use, and a dedicated emergency button in case something unexpected happens along the way, like a loose pet in the front yard. Since our first prototype, we’ve made hundreds of updates to both the software and the hardware, and they keep getting better.”
