Although Amazon has thrown its hat into the tablet, set-top box and smartphone arenas, each type of device shares a common goal: make it easier to buy things from the mothership.
This objective could soon expand across the entire home.
Now hiring
Apparently an expansion beyond existing Kindle Fire, Fire TV and Fire Phone hardware, the report claims Amazon intends to beef up engineering staff at the company's Sunnyvale and Cupertino facilities over the next five years.
The sources are in agreement that Amazon's ambitious plans may never bear fruit, while company spokeswoman Kinley Pearsall offered little insight as to what Lab126 is up to beyond the current 2014 hardware lineup.
"We will continue to invent and create new features, services and products, and to support this innovation," Pearsall told Reuters in a statement, adding Lab126 was moving "incredibly quickly" while growing at an equally accelerated rate.
Unfortunately, the engineering group's most recent endeavor - the four-year odyssey known as Fire Phone - has thus far failed to live up to hype, with a steep price cut from $199 (about UK£122, AU$224) to less than a dollar with a two-year AT&T contract.
- Revisit our review of the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite!