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.

  • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • snowe@programming.dev
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      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.

    • Rivalarrival
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      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.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          Delivery trucks require a human to drive.

          Ok… and? How is that a problem that needs solving?

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Waste of resources. A human can do other things besides drive a van around all day. We spend all this money educating people. So they can do a job a person with a 3rd grade education can do?

            Been in automation a long time. Have personally witnessed the primary task of a worker being replaced by a bin.

            We should encourage anything that gets rid of mindless tasks and dehumanizes workers

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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                  1 year ago

                  Maybe we should implement that first and fire all the delivery people second? But as long as Amazon saves money, that’s the important thing.

              • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Find other work? I apologize the rest of the human race doesn’t want to subsidize your lifestyle of thinking as little as possible.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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                  1 year ago

                  What other work? Do jobs just appear out of the ether for people with delivery experience on their resume?

                  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Truck driver? You know the most common job in the US. Do the people who you are advocating for know you have so little respect for their intelligence that you think they literally can do nothing else except drive a van around? I would be pretty insulted if someone was saying that my limitations were my current job.