Amazon Quietly Ramping Up IoT Technology With Acquisition Of 2lemetry

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Internet of Things startup could help expand Amazon’s influence into brick-and-mortar retail.

Amazon has quietly acquired Denver-based Internet of Things (IoT) startup 2lemetry, and now is poised to capitalize on the new addition to expand its range into brick-and-mortar retail using beacon technologies and facial-recognition software, according to Retail Dive.

The purchase was finalized last week, TechCrunch reports, though the financial details were not disclosed. Founded in 2011 by Kyle Roche, 2lementry attracted $9 million from investors, and it is a cloud platform company with software that tracks IP-enabled machines and other devices connected to the Internet. A retailer could use the company's software to send alerts to a shopper's smartphone about special sales.

According to Silicon Angle, 2lementry claims to have dramatically reduced the complexity and ramp-up time for implementing IoT solutions, through a core platform that provides a scalable, high-performance middleware and development layer for companies looking to connect device data with core enterprise decision making systems such as CRM, supply chain management, quality assurance, and service.

Currently, 2lemetry says it supports customers in a range of industries including transportation, oil and gas, manufacturing, mining, HVAC and industrial machines.

“I can confirm that Amazon has acquired 2lemetry and we look forward to continuing to support 2lemetry customers,” an Amazon spokesperson told Tech Crunch. Those customers include Honeywell, the Demeter energy group and First Mile, an office recycling service.

And while how Amazon plans to integrate the new acquisition into its game plan remains an object of pure speculation, Silicon Angle posits that could use 2lementry’s tech as the base of a new cloud platform that caters specifically to companies looking for IoT middleware, or possibly merge it into Amazon’s Kinesis service, which already provides real-time processing for massive data streams, including for data produced by IoT devices and sensors.

Meanwhile, Retail Dive postulates that Amazon might be planning to use 2lemetry to integrate machine-to-machine applications, regulating appliances such as smart locks and thermostats with the data-management system and Amazon’s Echo smarthome system.

Or 2lemetry could be implemented to issue shoppers messages in retail environments with the help of beacon technologies, and its facial-recognition software could provide marketers with what the startup has called “real-life analytics.” “The 2lemetry Facial Recognition technology can trigger environment changes and “real-life” analytics based on the recognized age and gender of individuals,” the company notes.

For now, the move is obviously an effort by Amazon to capitalize on the growing IoT platform, even if the direction it chooses to take remains somewhat mysterious.