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In a statement, Amazon said Lab126 was moving 'incredibly quickly' and cited the company's 2014 devices, including the Fire phone, Fire set-top box and several new tablets and e-readers.
'We will continue to invent and create new features, services and products, and to support this innovation. Lab 126 is also growing very quickly,' Amazon spokeswoman Kinley Pearsall said.
Aim to be indispensable
Whether or not Amazon ultimately sells connected home and wearable devices, the experiments hint at Bezos' broader ambitions. Lab126 has become increasingly important to Amazon's broader aim to use devices to make it indispensable to its more than 240 million active users.
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Bezos is deeply involved in developing Lab126's projects, from the 2007 debut of the first Kindle e-reader to the Fire phone.
The Fire phone, which Lab126 worked on for four years, debuted this summer to lackluster sales and reviews. Earlier this month, Amazon cut the price of its phone to 99 cents with a two-year contract with AT&T.
Amazon shares are down nearly 20 percent this year.
Other tech leaders are also seeking a central place in the home. In January, Google bought Nest Labs, a smart thermostat maker for $3.2 billion. In June, Apple announced plans for HomeKit, its own framework for connecting household gadgets.
Embedding households with such devices would be much more lucrative than merely selling gadgets like wireless LED light bulbs or wi-fi garage-door openers.
With Lab126's experiments, Amazon envisions homes decked out with Internet-connected sensors that would allow it to tell customers ahead of time when they need to replace air conditioner filters or service their washing machines, one of the sources said.
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'If I walk into my laundry room and there's a big pool of water and the floor needs to be replaced, I'd love to know about it two weeks before it happens,' said Ryo Koyama, CEO of Weaved, a startup working on connected-home technology.
Lab126 had almost 3,000 full-time employees in its 2013 taxable year.
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