Amazon Smart Fridge Rumored To Track Your Food
Amazon was rumored this week to have a product-tracking refrigerator in the works for consumers. This new product is tipped to use technology similar to Amazon Go cachierless stores and would be one of the most massive consumer products released by Amazon so far. This fridge is said to be developed with the ability to scan its contents to see if supplies are low, thereby learning which products need to be re-ordered from Amazon.
Information on this fridge comes from Business Insider, which quotes anonymous sources familiar with the project. It's suggested that the same team that created the Amazon Go stores "just walk out" tech is heading the development of this appliance.
That's the Amazon Physical Store unit at Amazon. For reference, the number of physical retail stores owned by Amazon is around 90 (without Whole Foods). Courtesy of the 2017 Whole Foods acquisition, Amazon has nearly 600 physical retail stores.
Amazon's fridge project is reportedly internally code-named Project Pulse. It's also suggested that Amazon will likely team up with a 3rd-party appliance company to manufacture the fridge. It'll likely be a situation like the creation of the Amazon Smart Thermostat which was developed with Resideo, creators of Honeywell.
A smart fridge from Amazon that's able to track your food and recommend when you should buy more (from Amazon) is not a shocking idea. We've seen Alexa in Samsung smart fridges, and LG's had innovations like Door-in-Door tech for half a decade.
It's the idea that Amazon would potentially be able to successfully market an activity-tracking (food tracking) fridge to consumers that might be surprising to the average user.
Amazon absolutely will not hold back when it comes to tracking consumers and finding better ways to sell as many products and services as they can at any point in the near future. For years now, Amazon has been testing the limits of consumer's willingness to be tracked and advertised to. It's doubtful the company will stop any time soon.