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Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

bloomberg.com

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Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#71

Post by losteverything »

As a person who gets outstanding benefits (& some $) making deliveries I think this is great.

Getting mail 6 days a week is not necessary. And if this allows a knife to cut out all highway routes and some rural ones and replace with only drones that would be advancement. Mail is not a right but glued now to legislation. No need if nothing-above-me areas get only drone service.

I ponder this. As the ups and FedEx and Usps guys converge in the same address, we often talk shop. I wonder what an Amazon drone would say to a competitor drone when they are at/near the same address? "Man, my supervisor is always watching me?" or "they loaded up this flier unbalanced"

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#72

Post by yellowbkpk »

gamegoblin wrote: post #38
stevecalifornia wrote: post #20

Vacations are already being soiled by people flying loud drones in areas of natural beauty, now we get to have our day-to-day skies soiled by fleets of drones delivering popcorn. Am I the only one who doesn't want this specifically because of the noise nuisance?

According to the video, they fly ~400ft up. Can anyone with more quadcopter experience describe how noisy that is? I know they are loud when they are nearby, but 400ft is far.

It depends a lot on the wind and the size/shape of the propellers. When I fly my DJI UAVs up near 400 feet above ground on a zero-wind day it's very easy to hear when I'm outside. When they get to be ~500 feet away it's much harder to hear. I've never been inside while flying, but my wife says she can't hear it when she's inside. On a breezy day, the wind through the trees covers most of the noise while I'm outside, but the variation in the noise when the flight computer is compensating for wind makes it a little easier to pick out.

Bottom line: you'll probably be able to hear these large Amazon UAVs when you're outdoors and when they're within 500 feet of you.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#74

Post by snrplfth »

beachstartup wrote: post #66
brenschluss wrote: post #25

I feel like this is a stunt. Drone delivery only works with customers that have private backyards - so won't work in a city, since the payload is unsecured after the drones drop it off. In a suburban/rural context, density is lower, meaning that with the limited range of drones, distribution centers won't be able to take advantage of density. Thus the range of products available at each distribution center will be mu…

many urban buildings have rooftop access. having a landing pad (could be nothing more than a rubber mat with a giant QR code on it) would be workable if the resident can confirm a delivery time to be on the roof. or they could leave the package there, if the building residents use it like a shared mail area. having said all that this idea of drones flying around all over the place semiautonomously is crazy to me. may…

This is a good point. Drones will probably be used for very prompt delivery. So the problem of unsecured packages will probably not be that important, for the same reasons that the problem of unsecured delivered pizzas is not that important.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#75

Post by anton_tarasenko »

Ph0X wrote: post #50
anton_tarasenko wrote: post #35

That's a last mile solution. Comparing to human costs of Amazon's preferred shipping method: USPS's subsidized parcel injection. The last mile belongs to USPS. In the urban environment, that's about 15 minute per parcel at $20 per hour (labor plus trucks). I.e., $5 per parcel. For FedEx, the cost of the entire expedition process is roughly $6.6 per parcel ($43bn cost of revenue for 6.5bn deliveries), so the last mile…

is 10$ the cost the customer pays, or the cost of the delivery? I highly doubt the little electricity (or maintenance cost over time) is 10$ per delivery. Also, as a straight comparison, drones are faster, scale better and are able to work at hours humans wouldn't. So even if it was 5$ vs 10$, some could argue that it's worth it. Obviously not in all situations, but sometimes there's an item you need right now and no…

$10 is the "willingness to pay" (the number is in the article). There's no good estimate of drone delivery costs since the interested parties cherrypick locations and distance.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#76

Post by durkie »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #34
stevecalifornia wrote: post #20

Vacations are already being soiled by people flying loud drones in areas of natural beauty, now we get to have our day-to-day skies soiled by fleets of drones delivering popcorn. Am I the only one who doesn't want this specifically because of the noise nuisance?

Interesting question - how quiet could a drone get? Presume they are not optimised for sound...?

I imagine these amazon drones are at least quieter than most consumer drones just based on their larger propellers. This is operating on the assumption that a larger propeller can spin slower to generate the same amount of thrust as a smaller propeller spinning faster, which might not be 100% accurate.

Motor noise in general seems like it's kind of an overlooked issue though.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#77

Post by FroshKiller »

John23832 wrote: post #64
FroshKiller wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an urban area in the US. UPS, FedEx, and the USPS all drop my packages off unsecured at my front door as it is. What difference does it make whether it's a person in a truck or a drone doing it? As an Amazon Prime member, I sometimes use Prime Now to get deliveries made in two hours from a limited selection of products, and that requires a minimum order and a delivery surcharge. It's still a great option th…

USP, FedEx and the USPS all leave your packages in unsecured areas. These drones would have to literally drop your packages off in a city. Those are very different actions. The logistics of even getting close enough to the ground to not obliterate your package, in an open enough area, while avoiding people and other obstacles (both stationary and moving) is a nonstarter for even small cities imo. Good luck in NYC.

You're overstating the dropping thing. I've had shipments with plenty of rough deliveries and rougher trips in the truck on the way to be delivered. Being carried in the air and lightly dropped from 10 or 20 feet off the ground isn't going to hurt my Blu-Ray copy of Captain America: Civil War.

I think when you guys say "cities," you're talking about some kind of nonexistent arcology of mile-high cyberpunk buildings where each tenant lives in 50 square feet. I live in a city, mere minutes from downtown, in a town home that is neither big nor fancy nor isolated. There is ample space to fly right up to my door step without ever coming close to any person or vehicle that could conceivably be close to my front door unless someone were standing in front of my front door, and even then, I'd probably lay out my special RFID-enabled chartreuse drone delivery area designation mat on my back deck instead or whatever. It's not a hard problem. All the hard parts have been solved. It's mostly legal now.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#78

Post by lightbyte »

wehadfun wrote: post #61
hellogoodbyeeee wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many UPS trucks are on the road on any given day? How does that number compare to your five news stories over the last five years?

You know that more than 5 UPS trucks have been hijacked in the last 5 years so I don't know why you are asking me for such a silly comparison. I have no proof but I would guess amount of people that will [Hijack a UPS truck] < [Shoot down a drone].

Considering shooting down a drone would be a federal crime I can't imagine more people would be willing to do it when compared to robbing a truck.

Re: Amazon has made its first drone delivery to an actual customer

#80

Post by smlacy »

jonknee wrote: post #62
smlacy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of specialized drone wherehouse in remote England: $1.2mm Cost of 3+yrs of R&D of drone fleet: $436mm Cost of delivering first package: priceless I'm not sure how this is ever going to compare with a truck and driver, especially when the truck will be self-driving in less than a decade.

How's that self driving truck going to get the package to the door?

I didn't see any packages dropped off right at the door, did you?
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