Within the picture above there are two wearables. One is Fitbit’s just lately launched Cost 5, a $179.95 health tracker designed to measure the whole lot out of your coronary heart fee to your sleep and even your pores and skin temperature. The opposite is Amazon’s new $79.99 Halo View health tracker, which Amazon says can measure the whole lot out of your coronary heart fee to your sleep and pores and skin temperature. Ten factors for those who can inform me which is which.
The Halo View was simply considered one of a number of recent units introduced by Amazon at its now annual fall {hardware} occasion this week. However whereas a lot of Amazon’s new merchandise characteristic fully authentic designs and options, like its cute Astro “house robotic” or Ring-branded house surveillance drone, there have been a handful that bear a putting resemblance to preexisting merchandise.
Take Amazon’s new $59.99 sensible thermostat, which works with Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa, and guarantees to detect if you’re house and alter the temperature accordingly. That’s similar to what different Alexa-enabled thermostats just like the $250 Ecobee sensible thermostat supply, however at a fraction of the value. To not point out Amazon’s design can also be just like a preexisting sensible thermostat produced by an organization known as Tado (which itself retails for the equal of round $240).
Not each sensible thermostat must look fully authentic or have a singular set of options (in spite of everything, there’s solely a lot a thermostat can do). However the announcement of Amazon’s personal Good Thermostat comes simply months after The Wall Road Journal reported that Ecobee had been nervous about sharing further knowledge with Amazon, partly attributable to fears that this knowledge might assist it launch competing merchandise, as issues that it might hurt client privateness. Ecobee was reportedly advised that failing to offer this knowledge, which might ship data to Amazon in regards to the gadget’s standing even when a buyer wasn’t utilizing it, might threat the corporate shedding its Alexa certification for future fashions or not be featured in Prime Day gross sales.
In response to The Verge’s enquiry, Amazon mentioned it hadn’t used knowledge from some other Alexa-connected thermostats to design its Good Thermostat. It mentioned the gadget had been co-created with Resideo, an organization that has additionally labored on Honeywell’s Dwelling thermostats, and that Ecobee continues to be considered one of its valued companions.
In the meantime, Amazon’s new Halo membership options appear to be apparent rivals to MyFitnessPal. Halo Diet is designed to assist customers discover recipes and prepare dinner meals that matches their dietary wants, just like the Meal Plans characteristic MyFitnessPal already consists of as a part of its premium plan. There’s additionally Halo Health’ guided exercises, just like the self-guided routines from MyFitnessPal. However Amazon’s well being subscription is loads cheaper than MyFitnessPal’s premium tier. Amazon features a free yr of its Halo membership providers with the acquisition of its new Halo View health tracker, and it retails for $3.99 / month thereafter, which is lower than half the value of MyFitnessPal’s $9.99 premium tier.
Once we requested Amazon about these similarities, it mentioned it had not copied different firms, and that its Halo service consists of distinctive options not accessible with different health trackers.
Responding to questions from The Verge, Amazon mentioned it’s “pioneered a whole bunch of options, merchandise, and even totally new classes” all through its historical past. “Amazon’s concepts are our personal,” the corporate mentioned, citing merchandise such because the Kindle, Amazon Echo, and Hearth TV as outstanding examples of its authentic innovations.
I’m not attempting to assert that Amazon is breaking any guidelines with these merchandise. There are solely so some ways you possibly can design a display screen that straps to your wrist and exhibits you your coronary heart fee — even when this one has clear Fitbit vibes — or a panel that attaches in your wall to regulate the temperature. Even difficult units like smartphones have seen their designs step by step converge over time, a course of not helped by the truth that many producers are utilizing parts equipped by the identical small handful of firms.
However the similarities look cynical coming from Amazon, which has been criticized for ripping off the designs of merchandise offered on its platform after which undercutting them on worth. Earlier this yr, bag and accent producer Peak Design drew consideration to the startling similarity between its $99.95 On a regular basis Sling and Amazon Fundamentals’ $32.99 Digicam Bag, for instance. Amazon’s model of the bag has since been discontinued, the corporate advised The Verge.
Amazon’s cloning of the Peak Design bag wasn’t an remoted incident, both. In 2019, putting similarities had been additionally identified between the $45 footwear produced by Amazon’s 206 Collective label and Allbirds’ $95 equal. The similarities prompted Allbirds CEO Joey Zwillinger to reply in a Medium put up saying that he was “flattered on the similarities that your non-public label shoe shares with ours,” however politely requested that Amazon additionally “steal our method to sustainability” and use equally renewable supplies. Amazon mentioned that the shoe has additionally since been discontinued, however that it continues to supply related kinds. Amazon additionally mentioned its authentic design didn’t infringe on Allbirds’ design, and that the aesthetic is frequent throughout the business.
Or what in regards to the Amazon Fundamentals Laptop computer Stand that Bloomberg reported on in 2016, which was launched at round half the value of Rain Design’s (on the time) bestselling $43 mannequin? Harvey Tai, Rain Design’s normal supervisor, mentioned that the corporate’s gross sales had slipped since Amazon’s competing mannequin appeared on the shop, though he admitted that “there’s nothing we are able to do as a result of they didn’t violate the patent.”
Copying and trying to undercut dominant market gamers is nothing new. However Amazon is in a reasonably distinctive place in that it’s not simply competing with these merchandise; in quite a lot of instances, it’s additionally promoting them by way of its personal platform. That theoretically offers it entry to a goldmine of knowledge which may very well be invaluable if it needed to launch a competitor of its personal.
Amazon was accused of doing precisely this in a Wall Road Journal investigation final yr, which alleged that Amazon’s workers “have used knowledge about impartial sellers on the corporate’s platform to develop competing merchandise.” The WSJ particularly cited an occasion the place an unnamed Amazon private-label worker accessed detailed gross sales knowledge a few car-trunk organizer from an organization known as Fortem launched in 2016. In 2019, Amazon launched three related rivals underneath its Amazon Fundamentals label.
The identical report additionally detailed an occasion of workers accessing gross sales knowledge for a well-liked office-chair seat cushion from Higher Echelon Merchandise, earlier than Amazon launched its personal competitor.
Amazon tells The Verge that an inner investigation carried out following the publication of the WSJ’s report discovered no violations of its insurance policies prohibiting the usage of private particular person vendor knowledge.
Whether or not or not Amazon’s workers are breaking its guidelines, regulators have taken discover. Final yr the EU accused Amazon of utilizing “private vendor knowledge” to tell Amazon’s personal retail presents and enterprise selections. “Knowledge on the exercise of third social gathering sellers shouldn’t be used to the good thing about Amazon when it acts as a competitor to those sellers,” the European Fee’s antitrust tzar, Margrethe Vestager, mentioned on the time. The Fee has but to challenge a ultimate report or findings, and in a press release Amazon mentioned it disagreed with its accusations.
For its half, Amazon says it has a coverage of stopping its workers from utilizing “nonpublic, seller-specific knowledge to find out which non-public label merchandise to launch.” However the firm’s founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos advised lawmakers final yr that he couldn’t assure the coverage has by no means been violated, and sources interviewed by The Wall Road Journal mentioned that workers discovered methods round these guidelines.
These accusations have up to now centered round low-tech gadgets like baggage, footwear, and trunk organizers. However as Amazon has expanded into extra areas of client tech, its designs are as soon as once more straying very near the competitors.
Given these issues, it appears particularly weird that Amazon was prepared to reference the value of competing sensible thermostats offered by way of its platform throughout the launch. Its sensible thermostat is “lower than half the common value of a sensible thermostat offered on Amazon.com,” the corporate’s senior vice chairman of units and providers, Dave Limp, mentioned.
As soon as once more, I must stress that there’s nothing unlawful (to my information) about utilizing public data like pricing with a purpose to inform your personal merchandise. However taking a second to particularly reference the pricing of competing units offered by yourself monolithic on-line retailer is an odd selection within the midst of all this scrutiny.
It will likely be unimaginable to know the way carefully the performance of every of Amazon’s new merchandise are to their rivals till we’ve tried them for ourselves. However given Amazon’s measurement and market energy, these sorts of awkward questions have to be requested. In spite of everything, Amazon is treading an ungainly line between working one of many largest gross sales platforms on the earth, and competing inside them as an more and more prolific client tech producer. It’s a troublesome steadiness, and regulators are watching.
