The deal’s explanation and price tag, earlier unreported, emphasize how Amazon intends to do more than sell another conventional camera, as critics had thought. The online retailer is exploring chips particular to Blink that could lower production costs and increase the battery life of other devices, starting with Amazon’s Cloud Cam and possibly extending to its family of Echo speakers, one of the people said.
Amazon sees its in-house devices as key to expanding its relationship with customers. The Cloud Cam and Echo currently need a plug-in power beginning to operate. Blink, which says its cameras can last two years on a single pair of AA lithium batteries, could alter that.
Amazon refused to comment on the acquisition’s terms or strategy.
The deal so far has brought little attention. The camera maker declared its takeover by Amazon with scant details in Dec. 21 blog post. Investigators have viewed Blink as part of the retailer’s strategy for Amazon Key, a new business where shoppers can set up a smart lock and surveillance camera so delivery workers can slip packages inside their homes when they are away. Amazon also sees opportunity in the security camera market as smart-home technology expands.
But Blink was not simply a camera business it goes beyond products like Vivint Doorbell Cameras or Ring Cameras. Its little-known owner, Immedia Semiconductor, was begun in Massachusetts by old hands from the chip manufacturers. Chief Executive Peter Besen and two of his co-founders came from Sand Video, which had produced chips in the early 2000s that decoded a new and improved video standard.
In 2004 they sold Sand Video to Broadcom Ltd and remained there as executives, according to an Immedia website. The group left in 2008 to create Immedia, proposing to design chips for video conferencing, and later targeting laptop makers as potential customers.
Dan Grunberg, a co-founder who left Immedia in 2016, said that plan fell through. Laptop producers were reluctant to pay $1 per chip when cheaper options were on the market. So Immedia pivoted.
“If we make our own camera, we don’t have to sell a hundred million” chips, he said. Grunberg refused to discuss Immedia’s sale to Amazon.
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