171–180 of 228 posts
Sending life-saving medicine to a remote township with a drone makes sense. Drone-drop pizzas do not, given planetary circumstances. For that matter, neither does the whole institution of single-meal delivery.
There are food delivery drones near me. Two recent data points: 1) They’re expanding the delivery territory. 2) They’re still using pilots with line of sight to make the delivery. I think that’s odd. Maybe someone is moving the goalposts, or maybe there’s not a clear roadmap to broad approval.
When you say "line of sight" do you mean via camera, or that someone literally has to drive out and watch the drone land? The latter seems to not make much sense but that's what I think of when I read the phrase.
I don't remember where, but I read a lengthy comment from someone in the industry which said there were two main things preventing delivery drones from being a viable market: 1. FAA regulations - delivery drones can't operate within X miles of an airport (technically they can, but it requires a much stricter degree of certification and compliance nobody wants to bother with) 2. Drones need a landing space, so people…
3. Drones, autonomous or not, aren't anywhere near reliable enough to do autonomous remote delivery. Final delivery is fraught with a myriad of things that can go wrong. GPS is not 100% reliable or accurate in urban areas. Failure in flight means both drone and package are lost, with the added bonus of potentially hurting or killing someone, liability for which the insurance company is not going to underwrite because…
Doing about 300 flights a day now in DUblin, and expanding soon to 1,000 a day.
Video of a weekends worth of deliveries here-: https://youtu.be/0lFT_K47Pa4
There are some companies/efforts in the space: https://www.manna.aero/ https://www.flyzipline.com/ https://wing.com/ https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2022/05/24/were-bring... Several more out there still from the initial bust. Regulations make it challenging for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) autonomous delivery, particularly in the US with the FAA. Also, it's a hard problem in autonomy to nail it every ti…
Video here of 1 weekend of deliveries-: https://youtu.be/0lFT_K47Pa4
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think so. You're describing the total cost and ignoring the larger amount of packages being delivered. Cost per package drops.
What delivery men need isn't messing around with slow and complicated drone launches. They need the equivalent of a mailbox, i.e. package lockers in front of every apartment building and in front of every house. Then all they have to do is get off the delivery vehicle, retrieve the package, open the locker, insert the package, close the locker and then go back to the vehicle. At that point you have reached human peak…
Just put the mailbox so the postman reaches it from the driver seat window.
No SaaS, apps, drones or VC money needed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surprisingly, I still see them around in Berkeley. As a pedestrian they're a bit annoying underfoot but mostly harmless. As a potential customer, they're so slow and ineffective that I've never felt tempted to try them out. They're thoroughly dull even as a novelty.
Hmm, I don't live there anymore but have visited the university a few times lately. Haven't seen any Kiwi bots. Last time was this month, which is summer and not peak business there, but other times were during school.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue there is that the battery tech to support long distance delivery drones does not exist yet.
Now I’m imagining a larger, fixed-wing loitering drone carrying the package(s) and a small last-mile drone that detaches, drops its payload at the destination and then returns to the mothership.
(The prospect of delivery drones is silly, but whatever it is fun to think about).
I don't remember where, but I read a lengthy comment from someone in the industry which said there were two main things preventing delivery drones from being a viable market: 1. FAA regulations - delivery drones can't operate within X miles of an airport (technically they can, but it requires a much stricter degree of certification and compliance nobody wants to bother with) 2. Drones need a landing space, so people…
3. Drones, autonomous or not, aren't anywhere near reliable enough to do autonomous remote delivery. Final delivery is fraught with a myriad of things that can go wrong. GPS is not 100% reliable or accurate in urban areas. Failure in flight means both drone and package are lost, with the added bonus of potentially hurting or killing someone, liability for which the insurance company is not going to underwrite because…
This point to me seems like such an obvious hard limit on how well this could ever work without some serious advancements in battery tech, and it's why the whole thing seemed like mostly snake oil to me.
The x-copters have very low weight limits (and low flight times when loaded) and realistically this wouldn't be possible for weights over ~10 pounds without very short range limitations and massive downtime for recharging (and/or truly massive drones, which would pose too much of a safety risk in populated areas).
Not to mention the physical shape of even many small / light objects would make stable flight difficult or impossible. The second the wind picks up, they are in serious trouble.
Maybe some small and very specific niches can utilize it, but I suspect in almost all cases (even when it is possible to use these things optimally) driving is actually going to be cheaper overall.
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.…
Fascinating. But curious how it can operate without higher fees? There's still the person driving to the place, waiting for the order, then driving back to launch. In fact, it almost feels like this would be more expensive in many cases than just bringing it straight over. Burning VC money?