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Cooler screens

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Re: Cooler screens

#201

Post by Nition »

briHass wrote: post #66
strych9 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet we, the average person, are supposed to be concerned with the environment while corporate ogres play frivolous games like selling “Cooler Screens”. I say fuck it, burn it all down, we are doomed and being sold a lie.

100s of pounds of e-waste that will be headed for the landfills in a year or two when these inevitably break. But don't worry, Walgreens no longer uses plastic bags, because they care about the earth.

Thousands. Article says they installed over 10,300 screens before realising they're terrible.

Re: Cooler screens

#202

Post by the_crocodile »

jw_cook wrote: post #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…

Love the acerbic humor style as well.

Lots of great lines. Enjoyed the highlight of the cognitive dissonance in citing the benefits of "transparency.

>"The retail experience consumers want and deserve," Cooler Screens says on their website. I would admire this turn of phrase if it was intended as a contemptful one. Cooler Screens promise to bring the experience of shopping online, "ease, relevance, and transparency." "Transparency" seems like a poor choice of language when promoting a product that infamously compares poorly to the transparent door it replaces.

Re: Cooler screens

#203

Post by tasty_freeze »

The Walgreens a five minute walk from me put these in ~ a year ago. Even though everything was fully functioning at the start, I already knew it was a terrible idea and it would only get worse.

The one, single thing that could be a positive over glass doors is that if someone holds a door open too long, condensation builds up and obscures the view. But in every other respect these LCD panels make the experience worse, often dramatically worse.

As for the contextual ad part of it -- I never saw ads, just pictures and prices of what supposedly was inside. If there were ads I would have only resented them. But in fact the panels are often down, or show the wrong information due to them not tracking inventory well.

Re: Cooler screens

#204

Post by amluto »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #116
johnnyworker wrote: post #26

What a waste of energy, what a destruction of resources, what a needless cause of toxic materials in landfills. Shame on everyone involved.

Yeah, and it's like they deliberately set themselves up for failure too ?! The way they engineered it is a bit like strapping a diesel generator on the top of an electric car as a promise to increase range... but a very inefficient one that weighs almost as much as the car itself. P.S.: Coolers I can understand, but how come freezers use glass doors rather than a real insulator ? (+ printed out list of contents... no…

Using glass may save energy.

Keep in mind that store fridges and freezers are opened a lot. If you can see through the door to what you’re trying to grab, you may be able to grab it faster, thus enabling you to close the door faster.

Re: Cooler screens

#205

Post by hbn »

pfgallagher wrote: post #146
tech_ken wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 straightforw…

It seems like you just used a lot of words to explain the obvious thing everyone who encountered them experienced. It's on obvious step backwards from a glass door. The engineers had their work cut out for them to fix the ridiculous problem that the product created in the first place. Only for potential benefit of advertisers, and at the guaranteed detriment of consumers.

Re: Cooler screens

#206

Post by scarby2 »

queuebert wrote: post #173
BizarroLand wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day it will be like the movie, "They Live", only putting the glasses on prevents the ads that have invaded every waking moment of your life from showing.

I would pay a hefty sum for AR glasses that enabled real-life adblock.

replace all ads with positive affirmations or a nature scene and you probably have a multi-billion dollar company.

Re: Cooler screens

#207

Post by pseg134 »

snvzz wrote: post #39
prmoustache wrote: post #33

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.

In the past I’ve used a flipper zero to lower the displayed price of gas on their signage and then file a complaint with the department of weights and measures. One gas station was closed for repeated violations.

Re: Cooler screens

#208

Post by 9dev »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #103
9dev wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re a few decades into a climate catastrophe; the world consumes far too many resources and energy. If nothing changes fundamentally, our grandchildren are going to live in a dystopian wasteland. And yet somehow screens in front of fridges seem to be a good idea to some?

Putting screens in front of fridges could actually reduce energy consumption, if they allow the badly isolated glass doors to be replaced by thick, well-isolated doors.

This isn’t just about the isolation; adding screens where none are necessary to display a few more ads, wasting precious metals AND energy for a net negative to society is so despicable, I‘m at a loss of words.

Re: Cooler screens

#209

Post by chasd00 »

i encountered these in.. i want to say Miami a while back or maybe in New Orleans. It's really awkward because the front screen just looks like an ad so my mind automatically doesn't believe it's showing what's behind the door. So I had to open each door all the way down the aisle to find what i was looking for because i didn't trust the screen. Also, they're very bright.

None of it makes sense but it would have been better to have like a projection of the actual inside with ads over laid on top. Make it more of an AR type setup vs just an ad.

Re: Cooler screens

#210

Post by drivers99 »

BoorishBears wrote: post #189
sspiff wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I didn't notice. I read the beginning but it was a bit long winded for my taste (insert comment about modern attention spans here). I skimmed through it but obviously missed the multiple paragraphs about the Walgreens saga (insert comment about modern reading comprehension skills here).

The formatting and background do absolutely zero favors even if you're actively trying to read the whole thing. I've worked on interactive signage for retail so I would have liked to read it, but it's just really bad.

I found it hard to read as well, and confirmed reader view in Firefox helped a lot.
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