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Kinect Grocery Cart Follows Shoppers Around the Store
cylonlover writes "When Chaotic Moon Labs debuted the Kinect-powered Board of Awesomeness — and its mind-reading offspring, the Board of Imagination — that was apparently just a preview of a more practical product the company had in the works. Grocery store chain Whole Foods recently gave a demonstration of Chaotic Moon's latest device, which uses the same technology in a self-propelled shopping cart. The 'Smarter Cart,' as it's been named, can detect what items are placed in it, match those to a shopping list, and even follow shoppers around the store on its own."
Please place the item in your cart. You have 20 seconds to comply.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
... and the cart can't find its way around the other shoppers. Remember, compared to its "owner" the cart is rather bulky, and may have some trouble advancing in situations which pose no problem for the owner...
If they want to impress me, then find a way to let me order groceries from home to be delivered at my home at no additional charge.
That has to be possible. Look at Amazon with their no shipping charges on anything over 25 dollars rule. If the grocery stores had that it would be amazing. And while some people might like going to the grocery store... I don't like shopping in person.
How great would it be if you could order everything up at home, compare all the prices from a dozen outlets, and get everything you want right to your front door.
Some might say it has to cost extra for that. But does it? Think of what you'd save if you didn't have to have so many grocery stores. Imagine if instead you had a small number of convenience stores for common items and everything else came from warehouses. The warehouses are there anyway. That's where the stores get everything from. So instead of a big truck coming around at 2 AM to restock the grocery store... the trucks instead move around your neighborhood dropping off packages of groceries. Frozen goods can be packed in ice. There is a theft issue there but we can work that out with something that looks like a big specialty mail box.
This is doable and it would be much more efficient. Less traffic on the road. Less real estate wasted on a service that isn't required.
Everything can go from the warehouse to our door step. Just a web prompt in between.
Some people don't have computers? Put a kiosk in the convenience store and they can have it delivered to their home.
Maybe this is a stupid idea... But I'd use it exclusively.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Without much more difficulty they could automate the whole process:
1) voice recognition or remote interaction with the cart. - The shopper reads their grocery list to the cart and it goes on it's way. Your cart doesn't need to worry about colliding with people so it's free to move much faster on pre-programmed routes.
shopper: "Kellog's flakes"
cart: "Returns three results. Frosted, unfrosted, and with raisins. Please state preference"
or
cart: "Our Great Values store brand costs 20% less. If you were to buy store equivalents today you would save $27.00 total."
The store apps for android and iphone are mostly spamware right now, but you could turn them into automated shopping cart list builders.
2) Shelves use automation to load items onto the cart in a hands free process. Delicate items are loaded in a dedicated area by store staff.
Shoppers wait in the front of the store in an expanded deli area. No checkout, just swipe your credit card and out the door. No more navigating around idiots in scooters. No more shoplifting. No more congested isles.
Whole foods has the most narrow isles and crowded stores of any grocery I have been to. At first I thought it was just the particular store I was at, but then visited one across the country and it had the exact same layout and spacing. I hate being in that place, even with just a basket. I can't imagine having to use a cart in there, but I only ever go to pick up a couple things that aren't in other groceries.
Even with these automated carts, I'll still get the one that pulls to the left and sounds like a hyena got caught in the wheel.
I'd bring up two points. The first is that pushing a cart around hardly qualifies as "more exercise" than having it follow you. A friend of mine who is severely obese always wants to be the one to push the cart if we are out somewhere that has them. She calls it her "walker" and it actually makes walking easier for her (at least she doesn't use those damned electric chairs, and to be fair she's lost 40 pound in the last 6 months or so, so she's trying). I don't particularly care if my cart follows me around or not, so I can't say I see the benefit her, but I don't think it's just and "even more laziness" situation exactly either.
The second is that the cart following you part seems like it's more of a secondary thing. The shopping assistant seems both more primary and more useful.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I live in the DC area, one of our local grocery chains has a service called Peapod, they use UPS style delivery trucks to deliver your order. The tractor trailer trucks that deliver from the warehouse to the store will not work for residential delivery.
Harris Teeter has a service where they pick your order and leave it in a refrigerator at the front of the store you park at the entrance and load up your groceries.
As an Amazon prime subscriber, I get 'free' shipping on almost everything from Amazon, however they have ONLY warehouses and no showrooms. Prime is $72 a year, I get 'free' shipping on almost everything, if I order 20 items a year its about break even, plus Prime subscribers get access to some of Amazon's Video on Demand catalog for 'free'. Where 'free' is $72 a year.
I have been trying to get my wife to try Peapod or the Harris Teeter service for a long time now. She is very picky about things like produce, I expect we can get those exclusively from our farmer's market, or she can just shop for the produce and have the rest delivered.
IF this model took off, look for a Trader Joes or Aldi sized store to sell 20% of the things that people don't want picked for them, and 80% of the things they need being delivered.
If such a service took off, people wouldn't need such big cars to transport their groceries in. In the DC area a lot of folks don't have cars anyhow and mostly get by with Public Transportation, not a lot by European standards, but a lot for a US city.
Oddly enough in a throwback to a bygone era, we started having Milk delivered about 2 months ago. The milk is from a dairy that shows up at our farmer's market, and they deliver once a week for a $3 delivery charge.
These options are out there, they might not be in your area, but they exist.
Stop and Shop in Boston does this already. You need a loyalty card and it relies on a handheld barcode scanner instead of a Kinect in your cart, but it's great.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.