Amazon’s Hardware Is the Ultimate Black Box

Amazon . com’s hardware ambitions grow bigger—and stranger—by the year. But there has long been a method to the company’s madness, even if investors are hard pressed to quantify it.

The e-commerce giant has been expanding its own product lineup over the past few weeks. Amazon announced its first branded TV sets in early September, ranging in price from $370 to more than $1,000. Last week brought updates to Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite e-readers. And earlier this week, the company introduced 10 new products ranging from its first smart thermostat to its first home robot. Amazon also finally announced launch plans for a small drone called the Ring Always Home Cam designed to fly around the home as a security monitor; that device was first announced last year but never went on sale.