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posted by martyb on Thursday October 26 2017, @10:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the will-deliver-no-wine dept.

Hot on the heels of Walmart's plans to deliver groceries directly into the fridges of homes with smart locks, Amazon has announced a similar arrangement for package deliveries, called Amazon Key:

Amazon on Wednesday announced Amazon Key, a new program for Prime members that lets delivery people drop off packages inside of customer homes.

To make Amazon Key possible, Amazon has introduced its own $120 internet-connected security camera called Amazon Cloud Cam. Customers who want to participate in the program need to purchase an accompanying "smart" lock to allow delivery people to enter their home. Combined camera-lock packages start at $250.

With the program Amazon is adding what it thinks is a more convenient option than traditional outside drop-off, while also coming up with one solution to package theft which is rampant in some markets.

The obvious questions are whether people will trust a delivery person to enter their home unattended. Amazon is trying to assuage these fears by alerting customers when a delivery is about to happen to allow them to watch it live via their phone.

This really isn't a big deal. They were delivering to the doorstep previously, and now they want to move the delivery by a couple of feet. There's almost no difference.

Also at The Verge.

Previously: Amazon Wants to Deliver Purchases to Your Car Trunk


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday October 26 2017, @01:03PM (6 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday October 26 2017, @01:03PM (#587781)

    Part of the issue is that I'm not convinced they're solving the right problem. Some other things that could definitely be happening:
    - The boxes are stolen before they get to the person's front porch, possibly with the cooperation of the delivery driver.
    - The boxes are delivered, and the recipient likes the product enough to lie and say the box was stolen to get a second one for free.
    - Drug cartels [nypost.com] pay someone at the Amazon warehouse (who are probably very cooperative, because working at an Amazon warehouse means you are treated terribly and underpaid) to fill a delivery box with drugs rather than the product being delivered and write down the address, and then pick up the delivered box off somebody's porch at the other end. Far cheaper and safer to use someone else's distribution network than to pay people to drive the drugs around.

    And of course, the really big ones:
    - If a random delivery driver can get into your home when you aren't home, they can leave with whatever they want.
    - If a random delivery driver can get into your home or special box, then anyone who has ever been a delivery driver probably can too.
    - Random burglars can and will disguise themselves as delivery drivers to get inside and take whatever they want.

    About the only thing that makes sense as an option: Allow customers to specify delivery times to when they're actually home. That's hard from a delivery logistics standpoint, but also the reason why pizzas and Chinese food don't have the same problem.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 2) by http on Thursday October 26 2017, @01:43PM (1 child)

    by http (1920) on Thursday October 26 2017, @01:43PM (#587796)

    Apparently, someone has decided that it'll be easier to sell the target market on this idea (which you only have to do once) than to solve all future dispatching/routing problems. I guess that's fair, given that dispatching is NP complete and humans are, on average, idiots.

    About the only thing that makes sense as an option: Allow customers to specify delivery times to when they're actually home. That's hard from a delivery logistics standpoint,

    But... but... that would place the cost of staff scheduling and logistics on the company instead of the consumer! Are you trying to give Bezos a heart attack?

    --
    I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
    • (Score: 2) by goodie on Thursday October 26 2017, @04:56PM

      by goodie (1877) on Thursday October 26 2017, @04:56PM (#587880) Journal

      Funny anecdote you remind me of. My wife was traveling abroad and needed a cab the other day. The calls this fancy cab company that has an app etc. and tells me that it will be here in 20 min. I tell her that she needs it in 30, not 20, to which she replies that this company does not allow you to book a cab for a certain time. You basically book it for a timerange and you get whatever they offer you. Basically, you have to be read when they are, not the other way around. I just walked away before I started getting angry at the fact that being told to make yourself available to their convenience when you are the customer makes no freaking sense... but hey, fancy cabs!

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:06PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:06PM (#587804)

    Allow customers to specify delivery times to when they're actually home.

    There was a handicapped mentally disabled guy at my apartment building when I was a bachelor some decades ago who kinda aggressively managed peoples deliveries with the strained cooperation of the residents, drivers, and apartment mgmt. He was essentially an unofficial doorman/front desk for the building. I didn't like that he just kinda started doing it one day, and his payment terms were weird (we were guilted by apartment mgmt into buying him xmas gift every year, I usually gave him a fruit basket) but it was awful convenient.

    I suspect the meme of "automation will destroy most jobs" will result in something like this getting implemented. Here's an hour a day job of solving the last mile problem for your neighbors...

    Normally payment is complicated; but Amazon is good at that stuff. For ... a buck I"ll accept the challenge of signing for delivery from UPS dude and I'll do the "last mile" thing to put it in the hands of my neighbor. Even for 50 cents, perhaps. Unless some jackass starts ordering lead ingots for handloading or 160 pound bags of kitty litter I'm pretty chill with even a mere quarter per package to walk over and say "hi" to neighbor, since I'd probably walk over and say "hi" for free anyway without a package to deliver.

    Presumably amazon doesn't sell kiddie pr0n or firearms or booze or fun drugs so me or my wife and kids accepting delivery shouldn't cause any legal issues for us. I wonder what the IRS / OSHA / Dept Of Labor think of me working as a piecework package delivery boy, but recent events with taxis indicate sometimes if you just kinda ignore the existing regulations and monopolies then things sometimes just kinda work out. So I'll get 25 cents/hr to deliver a box of crap to my neighbor and I won't have a business license or wear a hard hat or orange vest or anything, but it'll kinda sorta work itself out.

    Some people will spend a lot of money to "save" money so I would not be surprised to see a similar implementation where if I pick up my stuff at an amazon locker, shipping is free for me, if I deliver someone else's locker. You know they'll be plenty of old boomers driving 5 mpg SUVs for 25 miles round trip to "save" themselves a 50 cent delivery fee while burning like $10 worth of gas.

    Also remember there's "cable TV" appointment times which are eight hours long and only during business hours to punish the customers as much as possible every time they use the service, which would be a nightmare, vs something uber-like where any time any day any hour you can whip out a phone app and 5 minutes later a car with your stuff pulls up. This could be PHB'd into awfulness or it could be super convenient. Maybe instead of running my immediate neighbors there will always be one dude in my subdivision on duty 24x7x365 there's always someone logged in and ready to accept or deliver.

    Finally because the tea is really kicking in and I think they caffeine supplement it, because I'm flying the last couple days after opening a brand new bag of Chinese black looseleaf, I've got yet another idea, how about delivering stuff to the pizza and Chinese delivery people who traditionally are only busy during meal time AND lets be honest the only thing better than a nice box of junk from amazon is a nice box of junk from amazon PLUS some steaming hot stir fry, or sickeningly unhealthy yet delicious hot pizza or whatever. "Yo VLM, I got your delivery of three 3.5 to 2.5 SSD cradles for your fast raid array and I can hand them to you in 10 mins, and 'cause of my day job if you hand me $10 cash I can also hand delivery you a large pepperoni with extra cheese with them SSD cradles"

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:14PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:14PM (#587810) Homepage

    One suggested location for Amazon's big new building is in Border San Diego, which is coincidentally where drugs are smuggled through tunnels leading right into warehouses. So yeah, the drug thing makes perfect sense.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:40PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:40PM (#587933)

    Ah, then an amazon accessible camera pointed at the recipients front door helps solve all of those problems.

    Suddenly they have video footage of the delivery, and the theft or receipt...

    Or does that camera you're putting in/outside your home connected to amazon's servers 24/7 actually respect your privacy and not allow them to monitor it?

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:29PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:29PM (#588001)

      Or does that camera you're putting in/outside your home connected to amazon's servers 24/7 actually respect your privacy and not allow them to monitor it?

      Whether or not they can see what's on that camera, what makes you think they're going to bother paying anybody to look at it when it's probably cheaper to just send you the product again?

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.