Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jun8 | Hacker News Reader

Interesting bit:

"In its testing, though, [Amazon] sent out 700 gateway devices to Amazon employees in the Los Angeles basin, and because each one has a range of between 500m and up to a mile, Amazon was able to "basically cover where everyone lives in LA"

Whoa! Article also mentions the Ring ecosystem but this may have major impact on Amazon's home delivery bottleneck. I would totally buy a (cheap, small) personal lockerbox for my condo if it interfaces with Ring Bridge. AFAIK, they tested the apartment complex lockerbox idea some time ago but didn't take on. Maybe time for a retrial.

For Apple's ultrawideband, article focuses on in-home consumer but this has huge impact for enterprise, too. Many warehouse customers are looking into cheap ways for indoor locationing/tracking of assets, e.g. forklifts.

View on HN

I think it's already too late for enterprise, those needing tracking of something, be it a forklift or a single person with a handheld computer/scanner, already found solutions for this.

Actually Zebra is already offering something in this direction[1], but if you don't need such precision or have way less budget, triangulation with WiFi access points is usually enough (and they're already there for providing network access to the devices).

Then only remains the consumer market, I don't know if it'll be as big as they think it is. But I suppose they already checked that.

[1] https://www.zebra.com/us/en/products/location-technologies/u...

> capable of delivering thousands of tag blinks per second at up to 30 cm accuracy.

That's pretty useful technology regardless. Sounds like a lot of potential for innovation. Agreed re: consumers (likely) not finding much, but for business that's a big deal.

Especially it if becomes commoditized via smart phones and small devices. The niche advanced suppliers would still be serving the higher end of the market but the large tail will be low-tier devices.

"between 500m and up to a mile"

Nice combination of units.

Snark aside, I didn't realize this until you pointed it out. You made me realize that I subconsciously convert metric to imperial when reading, which I didn't know prior.

I do this all the time, probably because of running track in highschool - where the 1600m run was a "mile" and the 800m dash (damn that race to hell) was the "half mile".

sounds great, this is how it should be for everyone. We're learning both unit systems for pragmatic reasons, and there's nothing special with the metre vs the yard, we can use both concepts.

Couldn't you buy a regular lockbox for your condo that doesn't involve being constantly surveilled by Jeff Bezos?

We have lockboxes in my building in Japan. They’re just part of the infrastructure of a high-end condo here. You tap your key to get in the lobby door. A chime and recorded voice tells you that a package is waiting. You tap your key again inside and the locker with your stuff pops open. The lockers range in size from small to quite large boxes.

These work with any delivery carrier, but I’m not sure how the delivery person enters the apartment number.

If you walk around to the back side, which is generally exposed and doesn't need a key to get to, there should be a bunch of doors that are either unlocked or locked, and a keypad. I wondered the same thing myself about 7 years ago and, when I saw the Yamato guy, asked him to show me how he did it. :)

I moved out of an apartment building in the US which had a system similar to this. Ours had no empty doors on the back -- carriers had to use the same entry pads we did to deliver packages. Each carrier got a code which gave them access to the initial room, and entered the name/apt number of intended recipient.

Annoyingly, it was a subscription service with no other way of getting package delivery securely to the building.

The regular post boxes at my last apartments had some extra large common boxes. The letter carrier would put your package in one of them, and the key in your mailbox. Done, and no surveillance, tech, tech backdoors or batteries/power.

Who hands out the key to the letter carrier, a security guard?

Presumably each empty locker would have a key sitting in its lock - as you would see (for example) at the gym?

Yes, that.

Yes, but then how will the Amazon (or FedEx/UPS/etc) delivery person put the package inside? There’s a business idea here in connecting their handhelds to the Lockerbie and apps on customer phones.

Amazon offers lockboxes for condos and apartments called amazon hub, it is on the order of $10k upfront for a 100 unit building, no ongoing cost.

Our building has 7 condos so this solution is an overkill. Yet, every day we have 4-5 boxes from Amazon laying around in the entrance of the building. Rarely, neighbors pick up the wrong package.

The pricing makes it seem like it's meant more for the couple dozen to couple hundred unit buildings than 7. With 7, you know your neighbors for the most part. With 25, you probably don't, so I imagine theft goes up much more quickly.

My previous block was ~100 apartments. Packages were either left in front of apartment doors, or in the mail room in front of the (very small) letterboxes.

I'd have packages delivered 2-3 times a month. In 2.5 years, not a single package was stolen.

My takeaway from this experience is that most humans are decent people. Or that I live in a sufficiently expensive block that nobody has any desire to steal anyone else's stuff.

Most people describe a package room with individual lock boxes for each parcel. I was at a place where the room had restricted access (you had a one-time code and a camera scanned you as you entered). Inside was all of the packages. The email containing the code also had a photograph of the package. There were shelves for each floor / grouping of units.

The only odd part was the one-time codes with multiple packages. I would get one code for multiple packages, things were difficult to find, and I had trouble coordinating with my wife. I'm glad I don't have to deal with it anymore.

I wonder if it's even simpler than that. Use your door activity to guess when you will be home instead of missing deliveries. They could probably ship this functionality next week if they ignored privacy concerns.

It’s not when to ship though, that’s a last mile problem which is much harder.

I’ll be home at 5:30 with everyone else. Good luck getting a delivery truck to my door at rush hour.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com