E-commerce giant Amazon is planning to develop a hardware device designed for courier delivery workers to boost delivery capabilities. Citing sources, Reuters said Amazon is developing smart glasses for courier delivery workers to guide them in navigating in, out and around buildings to get orders delivered to customers' homes smoothly.

　　As designed, the smart glasses will provide delivery workers with navigation along the route and at each stop on a small embedded screen. By providing intuitive directional guidance, it is expected to save precious seconds when delivering each shipment. Additionally, the glasses will allow delivery workers to deliver more packages by eliminating the use of handheld GPS devices.

　　The program has not been made public yet. According to the above source, there is a possibility that Amazon's smart delivery glasses will not live up to expectations or will be put on hold and delayed indefinitely for financial or other reasons. The glasses could take years to perfect.

　　Reuters said the project highlights Amazon's efforts to reduce the cost of shipping each package and maintain profits.

　　In recent years, e-commerce competition has become increasingly fierce. From the earnings report released not long ago, Amazon's transportation costs rose 8% to $23.5 billion in the third quarter of this year. Amazon has been working for years to develop an internal distribution network, including the establishment of airlines, long-haul truck fleets and huge suburban warehouses. In doing so, Amazon hopes to reduce its reliance on couriers, speed up deliveries and cut expenses.

　　Because of the need to traverse neighborhoods and deploy more couriers, the end of the so-called “last mile” delivery is costly and complex. It is estimated that half of the cost of delivering a product to a customer's doorstep occurs in the “last mile”.

　　Currently, Amazon is focusing its attention on terminal delivery. In October of this year, the company launched a scanner mounted on the ceiling of the truck, through the green spotlight illumination, for the delivery staff to indicate the package, thus saving the time usually used to read the label. Amazon says current delivery workers serve 100 customers per shift. With increased efficiency, Amazon could allow delivery workers to deliver more packages and serve more customers.

　　The smart glasses Amazon plans to develop, internally codenamed Amelia, are based on the Amazon Echo Frames smart glasses, sources said. However, the smart glasses are still under development and have issues that need to be addressed urgently. For example, the smart glasses' batteries would need to support delivery workers for eight hours, the batteries would need to be light enough to be worn throughout the day without fatigue, and it could take years to collect complete data on every house, sidewalk, street, curb, and driveway. In addition, the glasses could be uncomfortable, distracting or unattractive, and some delivery workers already wear glasses themselves, so there may be barriers to rolling them out.