Amazon Is Reportedly Working On A Human-Emotions-Reading Device

The online retail giant Amazon is said to be working on a voice-activated wearable that can read human emotions.

Bloomberg, in its internal documents, describes this wrist-worn gadget as a product for health and wellness. The device is a collaboration between the company’s Alexa voice software team and Lab126. Lab126 is a hardware development group who has worked on Amazon’s Echo smart speaker and Fire phone.

According to an inside source and the documents, the device, which is designed to go with a smartphone app, has microphones to work with software in detecting the emotional state of its wearer though how his or her voice sounds. After some time, the technology could soon give the wearer advice on how to have effective interaction with others.

This is something that hasn’t been done by any company because of its complexity. It is still unclear which stage the project is at or whether it is a commercial device or not. Teams at Amazon receive wide latitude to carry out product experiments. Some of these products never make it to the market. The insider who wants to keep his identity anonymous was someone working on the project.

A beta testing is happening, but it is not clear whether prototype hardware or the software for emotion detection is included in the trial.

Back in 2017, in a patent, the company described a system which analyzes vocal pattern to detect the emotional state of someone. So it’s possible this is the technology that is used on the wristband. A system filtering the user’s voice from other noises is also said to be deployed.

Amazon refused to give any comment on this matter.