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Cooler screens

computer.rip

141–150 of 253 posts

Re: Cooler screens

#141
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The gas pumps that play advertisements while your car fills are incredibly obnoxious and makes me regret being a customer. Deface them. This is legitimate defense.

I live somewhere that a person pumps my gas for me. No ads!

But think of the lost economic efficiency!

Re: Cooler screens

#142
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The gas pumps that play advertisements while your car fills are incredibly obnoxious and makes me regret being a customer. Deface them. This is legitimate defense.

Destroying someone else's property is seldom the answer.

It is so commonly the answer languages acquired the specific word "sabotage" to describe it.

Re: Cooler screens

#143
post #16

A fun aside: Cooler Screens, the company making these, used to be the CEO of Walgreens, and Walgreens is their only "whale" customer. Walgreens began to sour on the idea of the idea of these screens, and the current CEO basically cancelled the whole deal when he came in, calling them ugly, costly and ineffective. Cooler Screens has been forced to take back many of the screens, which are custom made to the size of the…

> Cooler Screens has been forced to take back many of the screens, which are custom made to the size of the Walgreens coolers, and cannot be resold of reused without getting new coolers to go with them.

Cant wait to hang a cheap surplus cooler door on my living room wall hooked to a computer.

Re: Cooler screens

#144

I used to work at Cooler Screens, if anyone has any questions :D

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the article's theory that the main (technical) problem is thermals:

> "Cooler Screens does refer to them as vivid and engaging, and they must have thought that they needed to compete with store lighting to catch attention... the wattage of the backlighting (and attendant heat dissipated) must be considerable.

> "...I suspect they have a thermal problem. The whole system probably worked fine on a bench, but once manufactured and mounted with one face against an insulated cooler door, heat accumulates to the point that the SoC goes into thermal throttling and gives up on real-time playback of 4K video. The punishing temperature of the display and computer equipment leads to premature failure, and the screens go dark."

Does that sound accurate, or is there more to it?

Re: Cooler screens

#145

The reliability issues are surprising: First on some testbench, developing software, power supply, (physical) install procedures, etc. With that done, one would expect to outfit a few stores to see how they work IRL. But no: "The initial round of installations in 2018 reached 10,300 screens in 700 stores." As part of a $200 million plan to cover 2,500 stores. From testbench to fitting 10k screens across 700 stores, w…

What's really surprising is that there are no humans at Walgreens who can call out obviously bullshit customer surveys knowing that they're wrong. The company behaves like a zombie with no one really in control.

The emperor really has no clothes, but customer surveys say otherwise.

Re: Cooler screens

#146

I used to work at Cooler Screens, if anyone has any questions :D

Was there any awareness that the premise was kind of goofy from the jump? Was there any concern about the optics of the failing units described by the author?

Unlike the starting point, a regular glass door, which effectively always accurately displays its inventory, a screen layer, by nature, introduces the possibility of inaccurate data, an entirely dark door, etc. Hardware maintenance is no doubt important: having a bunch of inoperative doors, especially in a single location, can lead to customers having negative experiences. The advertising premise is more straightforward - show contextual ads to customers seconds before they make a purchase.

Re: Cooler screens

#147
In an internet full of low-effort outrage hot takes, I have to say I love (and miss) this kind of writing style that's polemical but witty and restrained. One of my favorite quotes:

> "Age-old advertising technology would use the context that you are in front of the ice cream door as a trigger to display the ice cream through the door. In the era of the Cooler Screen, though, the ice cream itself is hidden safely out of view while the screen contacts a cloud service to obtain an advertisement that is contextually related to it."

Re: Cooler screens

#148
post #16

A fun aside: Cooler Screens, the company making these, used to be the CEO of Walgreens, and Walgreens is their only "whale" customer. Walgreens began to sour on the idea of the idea of these screens, and the current CEO basically cancelled the whole deal when he came in, calling them ugly, costly and ineffective. Cooler Screens has been forced to take back many of the screens, which are custom made to the size of the…

LOL from their homepage:

    The retail experience consumers want and deserve
    Cooler Screens was founded on the core idea that consumers deserve a better experience in brick-and-mortar retail. We bring in store consumers an irresistible experience with what they love about shopping online: ease, relevance, and transparency. 
    90%+ of consumers no longer prefer traditional glass cooler doors
Fortunately we don't have them where I live but they seem like a truly horrible idea.

Re: Cooler screens

#149
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the future could have been amazing but advertisers only view things as places to put advertisements. i have a strong feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better.

The ad industry is not Midas, but Mierdas: everything it touches turns to shit.

Anybody that uses "Midas touch" in a positive way completely failed to grasp the story.

Re: Cooler screens

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding extra layers of glass increases the thickness and weight of the entire glass assembly, which is colloquially what we refer to as glass thickness in North America. Maybe it's different from where your from?

As someone from and in North America, we don't usually refer to multi-layered thin glass as "thick" glass, we call it "double pane" or something similar. Particularly since it's much lighter than an actual, single glass pane of equal thickness, which is the point here: the weight wouldn't be an issue, and even if it was, the screen is far, far heavier than better insulation.

It seems your a bit confused?

A solid pane literally equal in thickness with a typical double pane assembly would practically only ever be used for much higher end products, like armored cars and so on. No one serious would ever consider it for normal commercial coolers.

And the vast majority as of 2023 already use double paned glass, so comparing this at all seems irrelevant.

You don't need to have expert knowledge to insist on your own opinions, but presenting amateur knowledge as if it was doesn't help the discussion. I would recommend studying industry publications if your genuinely curious about this field.

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