Thanks to the new Amazon Wearable Technology store, it has never been easier to tell tech companies, “Shut up and take my money!”
A quick recap of the flood of wearable computers to hit the market over the last few years: the Fitbit wristband, the Pebble smartwatch, the sleek Shine sleeping monitor, and even tracking collars for the family dog.
Amazon has decided that they all belong in the same place. Before, navigating through the website’s massive selection of wearables was a little confusing, especially because many of the products were so new and novel that they did not easily fit the definition of “smart watch” or “fitness tracker.”
Now it has all been divvied up into more intuitive categories like “Health & Fitness” and “Family, Kids & Pets,” which makes for easier and more relevant browsing.
Will it push more consumers to actually buy and use wearables? A recent Nielsen poll found that nearly half of Americans were interested in owning one -- if only they were not so expensive and geeky-looking.
But there has been a push recently to make them both more fashionable and affordable. Amazon has not released its own wearable technology yet, but considering its track record with everything from tablets to its Roku competitor, Fire TV, it's not totally out of the question.