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Amazon's drone delivery program is the joke it always sounded like. (news.yahoo.com)

submitted 1 year ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

237 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Only one item can be delivered at a time. It can’t weigh more than 5 pounds. It can’t be too big. It can’t be something breakable, since the drone drops it from 12 feet. The drones can’t fly when it is too hot or too windy or too rainy.

You need to be home to put out the landing target and to make sure that a porch pirate doesn’t make off with your item or that it doesn’t roll into the street (which happened once to Lord and Silverman). But your car can’t be in the driveway. Letting the drone land in the backyard would avoid some of these problems, but not if there are trees.

Amazon has also warned customers that drone delivery is unavailable during periods of high demand for drone delivery.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I live on the 10th story of an apartment building. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?

I live in a duplex with a front yard that's about two square feet between the front stoop and the sidewalk. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?

I live in a house surrounded by a lot of trees. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?

I have an enclosed front porch, inside of which deliveries can safely be left without worrying about them being stolen. Where does the drone deliver my 10 pound load to?

Drone delivery to someone's home might be useful for a small number of people in specific circumstances. Most circumstances would be far more efficient if done by a human.

What does this actually solve?

[–] elmicha@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In Germany we have a trial run of food delivery. A drone will bring a package with up to 4.5 kg to a "remote" village, then some students on e-bikes will bring it to the houses. Why they are using drones instead of one lorry a day is unknown.

[–] ringwraithfish@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Having students bike the final mile sounds a lot like Theranos saying they could do all these amazing blood tests on their new, futuristic machine, only to find out that they're still doing most of them the way all labs did them

[–] buzziebee@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've seen videos of a firm doing interesting stuff with bigger "mothership" drones that hover much higher and then lower a much smaller drone like thing on a cable to place the parcel on the ground. They can hit pretty precise targets and can maneuver around more obstacles than bigger drones can.

All that needs to happen is for the tech to advance to the point where it's cheaper to do x% of their deliveries via automated drones than it would cost to have delivery drivers do it and they'll start doing it. Saving millions(billions?) by say halving the number of human operated delivery trucks will make it a no brainer for them.

[–] Natanael 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are the mothership drones blimp types?

[–] buzziebee@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Oh they weren't that big, though maybe you could have a super mothership carrier style thing one day lol.

Turns out it was on a Mark Rober video where I saw the drones. Made by zipline who've been doing interesting things with emergency drone deliveries in Rwanda for years and have a lot of backing.

https://youtu.be/DOWDNBu9DkU?si=pe3Cp5uW7wWqOT7T

[–] Natanael 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In all of the above, where either the landlord or the recipient specifies (and when it's decided by the landlord, the buyer gets precise location info to pass to Amazon when buying stuff, which would include instructions for how to retrieve it after delivery)

In all cases the property owner would be responsible for ensuring there's a suitable landing location. Preferably combined with lockboxes which drones can directly deposit packages to.

I agree with the others that aerial drones is usually not the most efficient. But in some cases the destination is complicated to reach by foot and then they're useful. Otherwise land based drones could easily be used (imagine a Segway style delivery bot!)

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What problem does a drone delivering a package to a lockbox instead of a person doing it solve? Other than Amazon's problem of spending money to pay human beings wages?

[–] Natanael 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If it's a box/home easily reachable from the road, not much. In places with bad road infrastructure, it can save a fair amount of time

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Ok, but that's not where they're testing it or what they appear to be trying to achieve. So that doesn't really apply to this specific program.