Flirtey Wants to Enable Ten Minute Commercial Drone Deliveries | Hacker News Reader

Flirtey Wants to Enable Ten Minute Commercial Drone Deliveries

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28 pointsprostoalex20 comments

I really hope that we see some very strict local regulations around noise control. Drones are awfully noisy and a city full of delivery drones perpetually buzzing would be a massive regression.

I'm gonna be real with you, the noise of private landscapers is infinitely frustrating to me, and nobody in charge has seemed willing to do anything about it.

I don't want to have a "nanny state" that seeks to regulate every possible little thing, but I just want to state a fact- leafblowers are loud and annoying!

Nobody will regulate it because it's those same elected elite who benefit from it (big pay = big garden to maintain) the most.

Also rich people don't have that problem. They live in condos in big cities, or on properties far enough from their neighbors that the only landscaping noise they hear is their own.

They won’t regulate it because to them it’s just a necessary evil of having a perfectly-manicured waste-of-resources patch of green for seven months out of the year that they then complain constantly about maintaining. If I leave my windows open at night, I get woken up by weedwackers and leaf blowers at least once every two weeks by apartment complex maintenance. And why? So the patches of grass nobody ever uses look perfect.

I am thoroughly convinced that the powers that be make lots of money off of the equipment and licensing and enforcement fines related to the manicured lawn stakeholder nexus :/

There are generally noise regulations, but they are not suited towards shift workers or night owls and they don't limit the noise much during the day. Also, at least for the City of Seattle[0], lawn maintenance equipment is allowed to put out at least 80db during the day.

[0]: Example for City of Seattle: https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code...

They aren't enforced.

Fortunately I don't live in an area with any gardens as I'm in the city centre. I have lived more rural though and leaf blowers and mowers were very annoying.

My concern with drones is simply the people density. Its one thing to say "you can't hear them 400ft up", however that assumes they never come down and given I live in a high density area, I expect many would be descending regularly.

And they are indeed banned or restricted in many countries. Even in mine (though it’s not being enforced at all, and the worst violators are local councils and other public gardeners)

Drones at 400 feet are quieter than many cars. If you can’t bear the noise of a drone delivering to your house, do you complain at the noise of an actual diesel truck idling on your street?

Yes? People don't drive a diesel truck outside my house. At least bit that I've commonly noticed (people moving in is an exception). Not packages: I see those dropped off every day.

“Quieter than a car” is damning with faint praise. Maybe that’s fine somewhere super busy, but I’d personally rather not have noise from cars OR drones.

Then the only option would be delivery by ground based robo-trucks ( in all sizes ).

I think there are a few who are in this business, at least controlling them from distance.

If you're in a place with no noise from cars, you're most probably well outside the range of multiprop drones.

I do; I live in the city centre with my apartment facing a back alley. Delivery trucks are often in the back lane left idling with radios blaring. Its one of the reasons I'm moving house.

I think there are definitely regulations which prevent large noisy trucks from driving around suburban areas.

This started happening in my Neighbourhood when some truckers worked out there was a short cut to get to the port, they started screaming down our street at all hours of the night, the law had to put a stop to it.

Presumably they’ll descend at some point, though.

I moved to a quieter street for that exact reason.

I heard UPS and Ali Baba have both started experimenting with drone deliveries in China. It seems we're falling behind in this market so hopefully Flirty experiences success. Faster and cheaper deliveries could add billions to the economy and would likely create many new business opportunities.

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