I live in a Durham, NC and there is a small radius where a company called Flytrex does drone food delivery. We use it every couple weeks since they have almost no fees unlike Uber Eats. From what I understand they place the order, drive a car to pick up your food, drive back to the launch pad, then load and send the drone. It then drops the food using a long cable that leaves behind a reusable bag in your front lawn. It’s surprisingly accurate since it has about a 15ft diameter circle to hit in my front yard to avoid trees and the house.
The one downside is the weight limit and weather. If you go over something like 8 pounds then the drone will fly what it can and someone will follow begging in a car with the remainder. Bad weather means car delivery.
Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
41–50 of 228 posts
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much like Theranos, basic immutable laws of nature make the whole idea absurd. Namely, that it requires a ton of energy to keep an object aloft. It's just wildly inefficient, and will never see serious usage outside of tiny niches. Not until we get science fiction antigravity or tiny fusion reactors or something.
Doesn't it also require a ton of energy to move a five ton truck to my driveway in order to deliver a 100g charging cable? I'm not sure the laws of physics are on the side of the status quo here.
As usual, the difference is energy density between hydrocarbon fuels and Li-ion batteries. Power the drone with gas and it becomes a different story. But then you just re-created the helicopter and all the problems which explain why no one is doing helicopter package deliveries.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#43Are you kidding me? It was all basically vaporware that disappeared when the free money ended. The Kiwi food delivery robots were basically fake -- they only went about 1/8 of a mile automatically. So they'd drive a car to the end of a street with your food and a robot, and then get the robot out of the car, put the food inside, and then the robot would hobble over a couple hundred feet to your door. Absolutely usele…
> > > The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go ooh ooh! When people say reporting can be racist, this is a perfect example! Including extra negative details that are not pertinent to the story at all. Imagine if every story…
> ooh ooh! When people say reporting can be racist, this is a perfect example! Including extra negative details that are not pertinent to the story at all.
Hold your excitement. Chavez is the CEO.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
2 is surprising as that’s the opposite of where I’d expect delivery drones to be useful. You don’t need them in dense urban environments where a stocked truck offloads inventory with low mileage. You want them in rural areas where as the crow flies makes a difference and it’s expensive to have a truck driving about sparsely populated areas.
The issue there is that the battery tech to support long distance delivery drones does not exist yet.
Interesting, I am woefully ignorant on typical drone ranges.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#45Are you kidding me? It was all basically vaporware that disappeared when the free money ended. The Kiwi food delivery robots were basically fake -- they only went about 1/8 of a mile automatically. So they'd drive a car to the end of a street with your food and a robot, and then get the robot out of the car, put the food inside, and then the robot would hobble over a couple hundred feet to your door. Absolutely usele…
> > > The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go ooh ooh! When people say reporting can be racist, this is a perfect example! Including extra negative details that are not pertinent to the story at all. Imagine if every story…
This is a silly comment and a perfect example of seeing only what you want to see. The founder’s name is “Chavez” - he’s not referencing Hugo Chavez here.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#46Are you kidding me? It was all basically vaporware that disappeared when the free money ended. The Kiwi food delivery robots were basically fake -- they only went about 1/8 of a mile automatically. So they'd drive a car to the end of a street with your food and a robot, and then get the robot out of the car, put the food inside, and then the robot would hobble over a couple hundred feet to your door. Absolutely usele…
> > > The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go ooh ooh! When people say reporting can be racist, this is a perfect example! Including extra negative details that are not pertinent to the story at all. Imagine if every story…
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Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#47Are you kidding me? It was all basically vaporware that disappeared when the free money ended. The Kiwi food delivery robots were basically fake -- they only went about 1/8 of a mile automatically. So they'd drive a car to the end of a street with your food and a robot, and then get the robot out of the car, put the food inside, and then the robot would hobble over a couple hundred feet to your door. Absolutely usele…
> > > The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go ooh ooh! When people say reporting can be racist, this is a perfect example! Including extra negative details that are not pertinent to the story at all. Imagine if every story…
Is this a joke? Are you thinking of Venezuela? What is going on
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#48The technology hasn't demonstrated the required level of reliability yet. Several companies are getting close, and and early attempts by the companies listed in this thread have paved the way for the FAA to start rolling out the process for scalable compliance. Up until very recently it's all been "approval by waiver/exception", which is very slow, while the FAA figures out along with everyone else what success looks like.
Currently there's approvals in limited areas in the US for testing, and several companies are approved for significant steps towards our shared dream of 5 minute burrito deliveries to our back patios. Nobody has gotten approved for blanket deliveries yet; the safety levels aren't quite there.
Plug: End State Solutions consults and supports companies in developing the conops, safety case, and approval packages. Reach out once your drone company has a design you're ready to freeze for the approval process and we'll help you out. Our team got Insitu and Matternet the first ever commercial UAS type certificates issued by the FAA.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#49Zeyi Yang from China Report at MIT Tech Review had a story on how well it's going in China: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/05/23/1073500/drone-fo.... The BLUF is it still requires a fair amount of human labor and it works way better when it can go to a designated pickup point.
His teaser for the article also had a more detailed story about how he kept on getting human drivers delivering him milk teas when he wanted a drone, but that might just be an aside about the cost of human labor in China and how the system schedules the delivery method.
Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to the “coming wave” of delivery drones?
#50Are you kidding me? It was all basically vaporware that disappeared when the free money ended. The Kiwi food delivery robots were basically fake -- they only went about 1/8 of a mile automatically. So they'd drive a car to the end of a street with your food and a robot, and then get the robot out of the car, put the food inside, and then the robot would hobble over a couple hundred feet to your door. Absolutely usele…
> > > The Kiwibots do not figure out their own routes. Instead, people in Colombia, the home country of Chavez and his two co-founders, plot “waypoints” for the bots to follow, sending them instructions every five to 10 seconds on where to go ooh ooh! When people say reporting can be racist, this is a perfect example! Including extra negative details that are not pertinent to the story at all. Imagine if every story…
Felipe Chavez is the CEO and one of the founders of the company they're talking about. That's why they mention his two co-founders. All from Columbia.
From your examples I assume you thought they were talking about the Chavez from Venezuela? I don't know of any other Chavez that could get that kind of reaction. Anyway, unless I've missed something, that hair trigger might need some adjustment.