Amazon has launched AI-powered smart glasses to enable its delivery drivers to find hazards, navigate to customers’ doorsteps and improve customer deliveries.

The glasses, which have been built specifically for Amazon’s delivery drivers, help them scan packages, follow turn-by-turn walking directions, and capture proof of delivery without the use of their phone.

The online retail giant said the glasses create a hands-free experience, reducing the need to look between the phone, the package, and the surrounding area.

Amazon’s smart glasses use AI-powered sensing capabilities and computer vision along with cameras to create a heads-up display that the e-commerce giant said includes everything from navigation details and hazards to delivery tasks.

When drivers safely park at a delivery location, Amazon said the glasses automatically activate, with the driven given their delivery information right in their field of view, starting with locating the right packages inside their vehicles to the corresponding homes.

The display then offers “turn-by-turn" walking directions to the delivery address, using Amazon’s geospatial technology to guide drivers to the exact delivery location without having to check their phone.

If there are hazards, or a need to navigate complex environments like apartment buildings, Amazon said the glasses will guide drivers safely to their destination.

The glasses feature a small controller worn in the delivery jacket that contains operational controls, a swappable battery ensuring all-day use, and a dedicated emergency button to reach emergency services along their routes if needed.

Amazon added that the glasses also support prescription lenses along with transitional lenses that automatically adjust to light.

The glasses were developed in partnership with “hundreds” of drivers who tested early versions of the glasses.

Amazon said their insights shaped a variety of details including comfort for all day use and the clarity of the displays.

Future versions of the glasses will provide drivers with real-time defect detection, which Amazon said will notify them if they have mistakenly dropped a package at a customer doorstep that does not correspond with the house or apartment number on the package, detect hazards like low light, and adjust the lenses or alert the DA that there is a pet in the garden.

“As we continue refining the technology, we’re leveraging the latest advancements in AI to create an end-to-end system where technology supports an even safer and more seamless delivery experience along every step of their journey—from inside our delivery stations, to over the road, to the last hundred yards to a customer’s doorstep,” Amazon said. “The smart glasses are just one step in our broader effort to innovate in the last-mile delivery process—creating solutions that improve safety and the overall work experience for the DAs who bring smiles to customers’ doors every day.”

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