Amazon's drone delivery program is the joke it always sounded like.

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• ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  As someone who frequently orders one can of soup, this is excellent news.

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  • AbidanYre@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Dropping a can of soup 12ft onto a driveway seems bad for the can and for the driveway.

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    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Self-opening soup can

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    • Player2@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Just give it a tiny parachute

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    • FaceDeer@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It'll be in Amazon packaging.

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  • zephr_c@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m pretty sure a twelve foot drop onto concrete isn’t good for a can of soup. Maybe it’d work for a T-shirt?

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    • FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Or a beer… As long as it’s Lite Beer!

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    • FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      As long as you don’t leave your car in the driveway.

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    • dojan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      People buy clothes off of Amazon?

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  • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    man killed by falling soup can which he ordered on Amazon

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  • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    For those of us who order one can of beer, please wish us luck even we go to open it

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  • sour@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    am cook instead

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• BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Reminds me of an insurance company that wanted to use drones to survey roof damage and in the long run they decided it was overall better to just use a camera on a long ass stick.

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  • snowe@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Just so you know, companies already use drones for roof surveys. I work for sunrun and we use them to analyze roofs for solar installations and whether roofs need to be fixed before hand.

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    • ramblinguy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah this sounds like a great use for drones- take photos of high up places that is dangerous to climb to

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  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Aerial drones are a particularly stupid method of delivery. Delivery trucks, combined with terrestrial delivery robots are a much more versatile approach.

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    • helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Delivery trucks require a human to drive. And despite the insistence otherwise, we are a long long way from any sort of automated driving system. They also operate on a 2-dimensional plane and have to navigate around a variety of structures.

      Conversely, aerial automation is significantly easier since it is 3-dimensional and there are not obstacles to navigate. This also means it’s much easier to automate.

      Companies like Zipline have been operating these services for many years now with great success.

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• merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Meanwhile in Rwanda:

  There have been 13,000 deliveries to date and it has been estimated Zipline drones distribute 65% of blood outside of the capital city, Kigali.

  pharmaceutical-technology.com/…/zipline-ghana-med…

  Just because Amazon is doing a terrible job of it, doesn’t mean it’s a job that can’t be done.

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  • PizzaMan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Shit like that is also a far, far better use of airspace/resources

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  • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Zipline is doing some freaking amazing things!

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah. Personal deliveries to your home may never be a practical thing. But, Zipline shows that there is a niche for drone deliveries that’s pretty amazing.

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    • Tangent5280@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It’s real macgyver stuff. Maybe it doesn’t fit into the cyber aesthetic, but its some pretty fucking amazing stuff. I hope more such applications get found in time.

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  • nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Ok. That’s incredible. This is more what I saw for the technology’s potential. Not cutting all corners possible to make delivery of disposable goods worse.

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      If you’re interested there are some great videos about it.

      www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU

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• Whelks_chance@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Ok sure, there’s limitations. So what percentage of their current deliveries are actually possible with drones? If it’s above 0%, then there’s an opportunity.

  Beyond that it’s a finance/ risk/ reward/ regulation issue.

  Imagine a van which drives into a suburban housing estate and instead of parking individually at different houses for 5-10 mins each, spends less than 5 mins prepping a set of drones which take off from the roof of the van and return in minutes.

  It saves time and fuel. It doesn’t work everywhere, but it doesn’t need to.

  In fact it could be the same van. Do deliveries exactly as normal, and use a drone for the last half mile when convenient. It’s not either/or.

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  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The big win, I hear, is the massively rural areas;farms and cabins.

    The truck can apparently launch two drones at a time, and they save time and fuel – and don’t present a driving hazard for a panel van which now needs to turn around in a potentially winding driveway. Then the truck moves on to the next stopping point when all drones are back.

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    • aniki@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      [deleted]

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  • yiliu@informis.land ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yeah, “small and below 5 lbs” describes like 90+% of Amazon deliveries.

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• mlg@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I would like to take this time to thank the slow government FAA for preventing Amazon from clogging up the airspace with crappy drones and preventing a stupid system from taking off.

  Aside from all the functional downsides, I’d expect these to go the way of Tesla when hitting a larger scale. Lawsuits and traffic incidents.

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• Cheesus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I remember people were hyped when they announced on Thanksgiving 2012 that drone delivery service was right around the corner. Brilliant marketing from them because people were hyped.

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  • Dettweiler42@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Turns out the FAA is that corner

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  • rtxn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I remember people being hyped about netting them or shooting them out of the sky.

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• uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Noise is absolutely a concern for flying things. The reasons we don’t yet have flying cars is not because they’re too expensive, but because they’re too loud. And this is specifically why the FAA won’t let me commute to work in an ultralight.

  The police want Bladerunner spinners so bad they can taste it. And the reason they can’t have them — or more helicopters — is the noise.

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  • SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That’s not the only reason why flying cars haven’t arrived. Getting a license to fly is about the price of a new car. Bad weather is no flying. Air Traffic Control can’t handle thousands of commuters. Flying cars are pretty big so parking is going to be even more of an issue.

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    • Dicska@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Also, imagine drunk flyers in bad weather.

      Ground traffic collisions can also cause collateral damage, but more often than not those are constrained to the roads or their immediate vicinity where not many people live. An aerial collision may happen above residential areas, and even slight fender benders may mean a double crash (…on little Timmy mowing the lawn).

      Also, there’s no air bag in the world that can save you in a crash.

      Road traffic is easy to direct and regulate with road signs, lanes, lights, painted lines. Good luck herding cats a hundred (hundreds of) yards above ground. It’s not a huge problem with planes because there are not as many of them and they fly at vastly different altitudes. Not the case with personal flying cars.

      With ground traffic, you only need two blinkers (or two sets). Some drivers even struggle with using that two properly. Good luck for getting them to use more.

      And that’s just the top of my head, I’m sure there are like 2634 other reasons.

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    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The amount of energy required to keep something in the air instead of using the ground is also astronomically bigger

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  • You999@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    We have flying cars, they are called airplanes or more specifically civil utility aircraft. You know, like the Cessna 172.

    Flying vehicles aren’t more mainstream because of the cost. A new plane can cost over half a million dollars while a used plane can easily be over a hundred thousand dollars. And that’s just the cost of the plane.

    The other reason is because the rules are more strict and are actually enforced. If a pilot flew their plane like the average person drives their car they would be sitting in jail await trail for attempt murder.

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      We have flying cars, they are called airplanes

      I think you’re missing the cars part of flying cars.

      Like, the dream isn’t to drive your car to the airport and get into an airplane. The “car” part of flying cars is about having one in your driveway.

      A new plane can cost over half a million dollars while a used plane can easily be over a hundred thousand dollars

      You can get a used Cessna for under $60k:

      www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Sing…

      www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Sing…

      www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Sing…

      But, the issue isn’t the up-front cost. Because a plane isn’t a flying car, you have to store it somewhere, and that isn’t cheap. Even just tying it down outdoors can be more than $150/month. Then there are the operating costs, which are much higher than cars: insurance, annual inspections, fuel, maintenance, etc.

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  • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The reasons we don’t yet have flying cars is not because they’re too expensive, but because they’re too loud

    I’m sure being too loud is an issue, but it’s not the issue. That’s like saying the reason we don’t all have castles is due to municipal zoning laws. Sure, that would make having a castle harder, but it’s not the issue.

    Yes, “flying cars” are loud, but that’s a minor issue compared to the other ones. They’re expensive to operate. They’re dangerous both to their passengers and to people on the ground. They’re extremely expensive. The infrastructure isn’t available. They’d require training to operate, etc.

    If you could wave a magic wand and make all those other problems disappear, the noise issue would still be a blocker. But, the noise issue isn’t the biggest current blocker.

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• perviouslyiner@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Another more successful operation in Rwanda and Ghana is en.wikipedia.org/…/Zipline_(drone_delivery_compan… delivering 1.8kg over 300km and dropped by parachute.

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  • Diplomjodler@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That works for special use cases in rural environments. They use drones for mail delivery on some German islands, for instance. As a mainstream delivery option in urban environments this is just laughably impractical and that has been very obvious from day one.

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  • ours@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s certainly more useful in locations with insufficient infrastructure.

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• FaceDeer@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  And it will keep on being a joke until, suddenly, one day it's not.

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  • ShadowRam@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The joke are the people that believe drone delivery won't be a thing.

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    • Moneo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’ll bite.

      Drones are loud as fuck and if drone delivery became common there would be a massive backlash from the public. Most people live in cities and do not have a yard to put a target on lol. Drone delivery in cities is almost certainly less cost efficient than truck delivery. Land drones are much more likely in cities, or just dudes with cargo bikes like in many European cities.

      So yeah drone delivery might “become a thing” but I doubt it will be mainstream.

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    • AustralianSimon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      We have Wing in Australia and gotta say getting small tech delivered or medicine by drone is very convenient. It gets lowered instead of dropped.

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    • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I won’t say never, but when and how will drone delivery be more efficient than a truck?

      Per package it’s more energy, it’s more risk, and the tech is harder.

      To purchase a fleet of drones big enough will cost more than paying a driver for a long time still.

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• histic@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I feel this could actually work fairly well in smaller rural/suburban communities

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  • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Maybe if they used bigger craft with larger payload capacity and longer range

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    • lipilee@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      And maybe that craft could have wheels instead of rotors to mitigate the rain/wind problems… i think we might be on to something here!

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    • UnspecificGravity@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The problem is that the bigger and heavier the craft the higher it’s minimum drop height is going to be because it’s more dangerous and needs more clearance.

      Obviously it also becomes much more costly to run.

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    • grayman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Like a Chinook!?

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    • histic@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      not even necessary a bigger capacity I mean it being just able to bring me like a bag of chips or something I forgot for dinner would be great

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  • chiliedogg@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That’s where range issues pop up.

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    • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      And poachers perhaps

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• Asudox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Great, it drops the package from 2 meters.

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  • BattleScarredFox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That’s an improvement over the delivery drivers that yeet my package over my fence

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  • Aqarius@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    12 feet is moreblike 3.5-4

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  • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Just like plopping a grenade in a foxhole …

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• andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Hyperloop 2.0.

  Delivering something by air is the least efficient way to do so, unless it’s Avdiivka and you deliver a grenade. Yeah, making them now is cheap (and we overproduce these unrecycleable toys), but what the upsides of using them instead of, like, land drones, or human workers, or some rail-system? It’s cool and fancy the first time you order it, but what’s the reason behind it other than our entertainment? Why not to make a delivery guy shoot fireworks once they are here - as enjoyable, and as chinese as these drones.

  Why we want to produce this junk in the first place? And aren’t we afraid this shit records close-ups of each property itflies over?

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  • Flipper@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    There are places delivery with drones makes a lot of sense and is the best way to do it. It depends what the most important metric is.

    In an African country they are delivering medicin and bloodbaths with a drone plane to hospitals that need them for emergencys. That way they only need to have one central stock of these supply’s that can be quickly dispatched. Driving wouldn’t be an option that would take several hours over bad roads. Veritasium did a video about it.

    For Amazon deliveries it makes no sense at all.

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    • Kazumara@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      bloodbaths

      bloodbags?

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    • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I agree with you.

      I’ve mentioned ukrainian Avdiivka, a battlefield, that isn’t accesible by usual means (and where aerial drones can launch a surprise attack).

      The same goes to places with destructed or underdeveloped infrastructure.

      Drones can be used in the least accesible places. But they ate tested in places that are already covered by drivers.

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  • elbarto777@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I disagree with you with the efficiency comment. In an ideal scenario, deliver by air can be super efficient. No road obstacles, shortest path trajectories, hell, the sky is 3D!

    It’s been tried before: messenger pigeons.

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    • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It can be efficient, but the major pro-land point is: what would it do having 0 fuel?

      A car would stop, a drone would drop.

      It’s an exception and no one would pilot a drone to it’s exhaustion, but either way holding it in the air is a costy investment.

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• FapFlop@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I’m just sitting here thinking personal home delivery maybe isn’t the most sustainable thing in the world.

  Perhaps we could invest the massive amounts of money that it takes to deliver goods to homes into better transit and post offices that don’t look like crap.

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  • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    We’ve had mail delivery for what, 200 years? We used to have (and some places still do) have milk and vegetable deliveries. It’s not even that expensive.

    I had diaper pickup and laundry service a few years ago, which was amazing. Well worth the $.

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• Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Welcome to the future

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• space@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s obvious that autonomous drones are more difficult to create than they seem… I think delivery robots that go on the ground are much safer and more feasible. They can carry heavier packages, they are less dangerous and can travel at less dangerous speeds.

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  • Wirrvogel@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    … and they can get robbed or kicked, their sensors sprayed shut… and repair costs a fortune. I don’t think delivery without a human makes much sense, maybe except for a drone that delivers to the Australian outback or a small island at the German coast.

    They want desperately to cut delivery cost by taking out the human they have to pay for it to do the work. To do so they spent billions they could have used to pay these people a decent wage and hire more of them. It is dumb.

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    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Solution: every 17th drone is a decoy carrying a paint bomb to mark anyone who robs it or were just standing around not trying to defend it or defending it effectively enough. Then the Amazon corporate police can swoop in and deal with anyone with paint on them.

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    • space@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      There are ways to prevent that, like alarms, notifying the police. These robots will absolutely have ways to be tracked at all times, cameras and all. You could also only use them for low value packages, so the effort is less worth it.

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  • Bwaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Because there arent enough people to fill delivery jobs? Or is it that they’d want living wages and health insurance?

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    • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Do you seriously think we shouldn’t try to automate things as much as possible? Why keep jobs that no one really wants to do?

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  • sirdorius@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    And use less energy since they don’t have to fight gravity

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• Zealousideal_Fox900@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If I’m honest it really is not at all surprising.

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• nutsack@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  it’s just advertising it’s not really meant to be practical you’re advertising for them good job

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• ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I’m curious why the limit is one item. If the drone can carry 5 pounds, why can’t they put 5 pounds of stuff in the box?

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• porkins@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It will be good for things like medications, small electronics, and basic kitchen supplies.

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• Elliott@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Maybe the end game is something far more sinister and this is a good way to iron out the bugs.

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• Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  can’t fly when too hot

  What the fuck?! My cheap ass, $10 AirHog drone that is entirely plastic and foam can fly in 115F temps (as hot as it’s ever been here). What the shit kind of crappy components do Amazon’s delivery drones use?!

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• uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It raises the question why a drone can’t deposit it lower than 12 feet. Is this drone theft control?

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• Chozo@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Assuming you live in any moderately-developed area, yeah this is kind of a useless service. But I can see this being very useful for people who need things delivered to remote or otherwise hard-to-access places where a delivery vehicle can't easily get to. Until the cost of maintaining a drone fleet drops substantially, I don't see it being more feasible than the standard delivery van service for most people, not for a while at least.

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• can_of_giraffe@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  See also: Royal Mail in the UK experimenting with drones. Not doing the last miles delivery to customers, but reinforcing the network with a human still actually shoving the damp bits of paper through the door.

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• cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  How is the delivery drone going to navigate around my wire antennas strung between the trees?

  Even when you know where they are, they’re hard to see unless the sun hits them just right.

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• HawlSera@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This sounds like a terrible premise for an episode of the Jetsons

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• Gingerlegs@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I get that this is probably more a learning experience than anything…butttt

  The way the world is going and the conditions this thing needs to operate? Idk man

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• CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The program itself isn’t absurd, but Amazon is a bunch of fucking clowns. I only expect them to fail in the world of logistics. But they’re so big & everybody keeps giving them their money, they can do whatever they want, poorly, forever. They fail ‘up’.

  Drone delivery is indeed part of the future of logistics. They just need to make the drones more robust to handle slightly bigger, heavier loads, like at least 10# would be great & a reasonable goal. Arm it with AI so it knows where to drop the payload. Etc etc. There are indeed a number of kinks to be worked out…and who better to crash & burn, learn on than Amazon? 🤡

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