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Walmart wants to test "in-fridge delivery" for Silicon Valley customers with August Home "smart locks":
Here's how the test will work: I place an order on Walmart.com for several items, even groceries. When my order is ready, a Deliv driver will retrieve my items and bring them to my home. If no one answers the doorbell, he or she will have a one-time passcode that I've pre-authorized which will open my home's smart lock. As the homeowner, I'm in control of the experience the entire time – the moment the Deliv driver rings my doorbell, I receive a smartphone notification that the delivery is occurring and, if I choose, I can watch the delivery take place in real-time. The Deliv associate will drop off my packages in my foyer and then carry my groceries to the kitchen, unload them in my fridge and leave. I'm watching the entire process from start to finish from my home security cameras through the August app. As I watch the Deliv associate exit my front door, I even receive confirmation that my door has automatically been locked.
While some may find the idea creepy, others have downplayed the creepiness factor:
"Five years ago consumers wouldn't have assumed they'd let a stranger drive them from the airport, much less stay in their house," said Forrest Collier, the CEO of eMeals, a platform that offers shopping lists based on recipes and loads the items into online shopping carts at Walmart and Kroger (KR) . "Now both Uber and Airbnb are billion-dollar companies."
For now, the fridge restocking service will only be available to Silicon Valley users of August Home. Customers will get a notification through their August Home app every time a delivery person drops off their food.
[...] Even though this Walmart service sounds "creepy on the front end," said Collier of eMeals, "it's really not as creepy as letting a stranger sleep in your bedroom."
Also at LA Times, Reuters, SiliconBeat, and CNET.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday September 24 2017, @09:18PM (1 child)
Milk door. My neighbor's house still has the door. Its big enough for a quart or two of fresh cow juice. Too small for ice. Maybe houses were made with "giant" ice doors. There's also the coal chute, and the heating oil pipe (extra fun if you remove the heating oil tank and the supply company dumps 1000 gallons in your basement like they do every time they're in the neighborhood.
Another "problem" not yet discussed is the semi-rural garage freezer sometimes full of poached or even legit caught protein. Some idiot will stick your refrigerated liquids in there, blow up when they freeze, screwing up your venison and fish freezer. As a side dish some people also have a workshop in the garage with a fridge sometimes stocked with beer (depending on local neighborhood population of teenage boys, LOL) This is, I suppose, an opportunity in that the concept of "fridge in your garage" might be a good place to put the food anyway. You're gonna end up with people having three fridges in the garage, the venison freezer, the beer fridge (sometimes converted into kegerator), and the delivery fridge.
One interesting concept is delivery usually isn't free and Walmart is known as the most downscale retailer out there. Its like asking why McDonalds doesn't offer champange with their deliveries...
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 25 2017, @12:57PM
That's because the code states that a fill pipe is to be removed or capped with concrete in NYC if the oil tank is removed. I would Imagine other areas have similar codes.