AFAICT, the only role your phone plays is to display a some sort of QR code to a reader when you enter the shop, after which you can literally put your phone in

AFAICT, the only role your phone plays is to display a some sort of QR code to a reader when you enter the shop, after which you can literally put your phone into airplane mode and it wouldn't matter. I don't see why you couldn't just as easily punch in a code, swipe a card, or just show your face to a camera upon entering. [edit] I don't think that's how Amazon implements it at the moment; it just doesn't seem like there's an inherent limitation in the technology that would require customers to have phones. It's just that it's only open to Amazon employees at the moment, so pretty much every "customer" is guaranteed to have a phone.