this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
788 points (96.2% liked)

Technology

60101 readers
3449 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
788
Amazon's drone delivery program is the joke it always sounded like. (news.yahoo.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
244 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Only one item can be delivered at a time. It can’t weigh more than 5 pounds. It can’t be too big. It can’t be something breakable, since the drone drops it from 12 feet. The drones can’t fly when it is too hot or too windy or too rainy.

You need to be home to put out the landing target and to make sure that a porch pirate doesn’t make off with your item or that it doesn’t roll into the street (which happened once to Lord and Silverman). But your car can’t be in the driveway. Letting the drone land in the backyard would avoid some of these problems, but not if there are trees.

Amazon has also warned customers that drone delivery is unavailable during periods of high demand for drone delivery.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It raises the question why a drone can't deposit it lower than 12 feet. Is this drone theft control?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It can't be allowed to fly too close to people, and there's also concerns with interfere, collisions, animals, etc

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Having built commerical drones, it's mainly two things, obstacles and ground effect.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Probably loss of signal from GPS for one, and there are far more obstacles like power lines that can be hit below 12 feet.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Show me where power lines are below 12 feet, except the insulated residential connections.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Here points and gets zapped dead

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Really. Did you just say I couldn’t use the very power lines I was indirectly referencing in order to make yourself right? The very power lines that are closest to the point of delivery - people’s homes?

That’s like saying “there’s no water on land except for the lakes, and you can’t talk about them. “

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Might be a stupid idea, but maybe a cable that extends 12ft down and releases the object at ground level or close to, then retracts to the drone. Surely they have thought of this though