6 ms·

Whatever, not interested in burglars. I could've used that thing to check basic status of the apartment that I don't use. Broken windows, water leaks and stuff.

by slezyr 6y ago

gbear0 6y ago
This seems like a much more useful usecase to me than burglars, but apparently you can't manually control the device beyond automated paths, which makes this almost useless I think. But even if you could manually control the device, I'd be too afraid of having Amazon capturing full video of all my belongings. They have the resources to easily hook up the feed to an object detection ETL or some other AI system to extract a ton of information about the owners, and then sell that as specialized advertising intelligence. All of a sudden my mailbox fills up with lots of high focused ads. OK I realize that's probably going down the conspiracy theory path a little much :), but I don't think it's too far off.
- pc86 6y ago
  Honestly I would be shocked if that's not the goal. Imagine being able to not only know someone has your product, but not advertise to them until that product disappears, is in a state of disrepair, or reaches a particular age.
  - the-pigeon 6y ago
    It wouldn't surprise me if this was a goal but they should really figure out basic recommendations first. I just bought a power washer. I bought it on Amazon. Amazon easily knows I now own a power washer. And yet Amazon is giving me a ton of recommendations for power washers. This is a constant problem with recommendations and everyone I know has the same experience. And unless there's some sort of data regulation preventing them from applying my purchase history to their recommendations it's ridiculously easy to fix. Tag item categories as "1 per household over x months" and when someone purchase amount goes beyond the threshold stop recommending products from that category until x months has passed.
    - ponker 6y ago
      Do you seriously think that Amazon never thought of not showing you a second power washer? The data must show that this is more profitable than the alternatives.
      - bussierem 6y ago
        I have Google advertising to me, on my Pixel 3a using Google Fi, in my Gmail app, telling me about how I should sign up for Google Fi. I have a pretty good hunch that these companies often do stupid stuff like this.
        ghaff 6y ago
        And Verizon is constantly mailing me to switch to FIOS. And when I look on their site to look up FIOS availability, it's not actually available. For some reason, both Comcast and Verizon also have my address as a variant on my real postal service address that hasn't been true since before I moved here over 20 years ago.
    - badwolf 6y ago
      Same with vacuum cleaners. How many does Amazon really think I need in my 1 bedroom, hardwood floor apartment.
      - pc86 6y ago
        Just one more, man.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      It seems to be a general problem with recommendation engines. I assume that manually tagging certain types of items with a flag that means "The buyer is unlikely to buy another item in this category within a meaningful timeframe no matter how often we recommend it" is more effort than the recommendation slot is worth. There are probably a number of flags one could imagine setting but it's likely very hard to automate because it requires understanding how people use/consume/upgrade/etc. a given item.
- uptown 6y ago
  Of course that's what they'll use it for. Don't worry -- the terms and conditions that nobody reads or could understand even if they did read, says they just send "metadata" back to improve the user experience.
beambot 6y ago
I'm the founder of Cobalt Robotics [1]. We develop "security" robots for commercial spaces -- though ours are wheeled, have a screen for 2-way video chats, etc. Turns out that security is a euphemism for "observation & reporting." Use cases span a host of shared services: Traditional Security, Employee Health & Safety, Facilities Management (e.g. leaks & spills), Customer Service, and others. Breaking & Enterings do happen, but they are rare. Facilities incidents such as the ones you mentioned are vastly more common. [1] https://www.cobaltrobotics.com/ https://www.cobaltrobotics.com/
- thelazydogsback 6y ago
  Just curious - is there a chart on your site comparing you to Knightscope or other offerings?
  - beambot 6y ago
    We haven't shared one publicly, though I have plenty in private slide decks. Feel free to reach out (email in profile). A few highlights: * We are exclusively indoors at this time. * We're the only indoor provider that can manage doors & elevators. * We have 2-way video in addition to 2-way audio. * We provide a comprehensive service: hardware, software, service & maintenance, and remote monitoring. * We manage multiple, redundant 24/7 command centers, with operators speaking dozens of languages. * We have SOC2 certifications & deal with GDPR - shockingly, no other providers are SOC2 certified. * We offer rich applications on the robot's screen, including visitor management, forms, etc. * We can perform COVID-related features, such as elevated temperature screening using FLIR cameras, promoting social distancing, and enforcing PPE. * We support international operations too.
sudosysgen 6y ago
Wouldn't a remote controlled drone over the internet fulfill those purposes? Would be relatively cheap to get working.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  Wouldn't a remote controlled drone over the internet fulfill those purposes? Would be relatively cheap to get working. I think the majority of people aren't very good at flying drones. Even outside, it can take a lot of practice. People don't want to spend hours or days learning how to fly a drone in their homes. They want stuff to just work.
  - ansible 6y ago
    > I think the majority of people aren't very good at flying drones. Even outside, it can take a lot of practice. I crashed and broke my VTOL airplane twice last weekend. Sighs dramatically. Pilot error. More seriously, there's a couple main issues: piloting, and recharging. You'd want the drone to not crash into anything, and remote controlling the drone with Internet-induced lag would be especially challenging. There's a reason why FPV setups for race drones use analog video still. Also, just as with making a household wheeled security robot, you can do that right now, but the automatic return to the charging base is not widely available as a commercial product.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    You would use a hybrid solution, where the drone is still aware of its surroundings and provides a simplified control interface.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  That’s exactly what I want. Just like “wouldn’t a doorbell with a video feed connected to your own computer fulfill those purposes?” for a ring doorbell. Yes! But I want a product, not tinkering. The appeal of this isn’t just what it does but that it does it right after I unpack it. I want it to fly by itself using some wizardry that a person at a huge company cooked up. I just don’t want it to phone home to do it. That’s what I want in the “standalone” one too. Mass market product appeal. No tinkering.
babo 6y ago
and the ability to open and close doors...
humblebee 6y ago
Yes, I think this could actually be a good product, or at least something similar to it for anyone who suffers from OCD. I think a lot of smart devices can help people. Maybe there is a better product though.
chasd00 6y ago
that's an interesting thought. Use it to fly around a lake house after a storm looking for damage.
thescriptkiddie 6y ago
Why do you have an apartment that you don't use?
ponker 6y ago
I’d love a small robot that I could put inside the walls of my house that would crawl around and check for water leaks, bugs, etc.
biztos 6y ago
I also find it interesting for a place I leave empty for months at a time, but for that purpose doesn't it seem... fragile? Seriously: I haven't put in a camera because my DSL craps out every month or so and requires a hard modem reboot to reconnect, which seems like a lot to ask from the friend who checks my mail. I would love to see a solution tailored to people not in their domiciles, but I don't feel like this is it. This announcement (not yet a product!) is for people who really need to look around the places they're going to return to in a day or two anyway, max. Maybe that's a market; it's not me.
- richardw 6y ago
  One option for ADSL: power timer plug. Turn off from 3am for 5 min.

Whatever, not interested in burglars. I could've used that thing to check basic status of the apartment that I don't use. Broken windows, water leaks and stuff.

by slezyr 6y ago

Whatever, not interested in burglars. I could've used that thing to check basic status of the apartment that I don't use. Broken windows, water leaks and stuff.

gbear0 6y ago

This seems like a much more useful usecase to me than burglars, but apparently you can't manually control the device beyond automated paths, which makes this almost useless I think. But even if you could manually control the device, I'd be too afraid of having Amazon capturing full video of all my belongings. They have the resources to easily hook up the feed to an object detection ETL or some other AI system to extract a ton of information about the owners, and then sell that as specialized advertising intelligence. All of a sudden my mailbox fills up with lots of high focused ads. OK I realize that's probably going down the conspiracy theory path a little much :), but I don't think it's too far off.

pc86 6y ago
Honestly I would be shocked if that's not the goal. Imagine being able to not only know someone has your product, but not advertise to them until that product disappears, is in a state of disrepair, or reaches a particular age.
- the-pigeon 6y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if this was a goal but they should really figure out basic recommendations first. I just bought a power washer. I bought it on Amazon. Amazon easily knows I now own a power washer. And yet Amazon is giving me a ton of recommendations for power washers. This is a constant problem with recommendations and everyone I know has the same experience. And unless there's some sort of data regulation preventing them from applying my purchase history to their recommendations it's ridiculously easy to fix. Tag item categories as "1 per household over x months" and when someone purchase amount goes beyond the threshold stop recommending products from that category until x months has passed.
  - ponker 6y ago
    Do you seriously think that Amazon never thought of not showing you a second power washer? The data must show that this is more profitable than the alternatives.
    - bussierem 6y ago
      I have Google advertising to me, on my Pixel 3a using Google Fi, in my Gmail app, telling me about how I should sign up for Google Fi. I have a pretty good hunch that these companies often do stupid stuff like this.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        And Verizon is constantly mailing me to switch to FIOS. And when I look on their site to look up FIOS availability, it's not actually available. For some reason, both Comcast and Verizon also have my address as a variant on my real postal service address that hasn't been true since before I moved here over 20 years ago.
  - badwolf 6y ago
    Same with vacuum cleaners. How many does Amazon really think I need in my 1 bedroom, hardwood floor apartment.
    - pc86 6y ago
      Just one more, man.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    It seems to be a general problem with recommendation engines. I assume that manually tagging certain types of items with a flag that means "The buyer is unlikely to buy another item in this category within a meaningful timeframe no matter how often we recommend it" is more effort than the recommendation slot is worth. There are probably a number of flags one could imagine setting but it's likely very hard to automate because it requires understanding how people use/consume/upgrade/etc. a given item.
uptown 6y ago
Of course that's what they'll use it for. Don't worry -- the terms and conditions that nobody reads or could understand even if they did read, says they just send "metadata" back to improve the user experience.

beambot 6y ago

I'm the founder of Cobalt Robotics [1]. We develop "security" robots for commercial spaces -- though ours are wheeled, have a screen for 2-way video chats, etc. Turns out that security is a euphemism for "observation & reporting." Use cases span a host of shared services: Traditional Security, Employee Health & Safety, Facilities Management (e.g. leaks & spills), Customer Service, and others. Breaking & Enterings do happen, but they are rare. Facilities incidents such as the ones you mentioned are vastly more common. [1] https://www.cobaltrobotics.com/ https://www.cobaltrobotics.com/

thelazydogsback 6y ago
Just curious - is there a chart on your site comparing you to Knightscope or other offerings?
- beambot 6y ago
  We haven't shared one publicly, though I have plenty in private slide decks. Feel free to reach out (email in profile). A few highlights: * We are exclusively indoors at this time. * We're the only indoor provider that can manage doors & elevators. * We have 2-way video in addition to 2-way audio. * We provide a comprehensive service: hardware, software, service & maintenance, and remote monitoring. * We manage multiple, redundant 24/7 command centers, with operators speaking dozens of languages. * We have SOC2 certifications & deal with GDPR - shockingly, no other providers are SOC2 certified. * We offer rich applications on the robot's screen, including visitor management, forms, etc. * We can perform COVID-related features, such as elevated temperature screening using FLIR cameras, promoting social distancing, and enforcing PPE. * We support international operations too.

sudosysgen 6y ago

Wouldn't a remote controlled drone over the internet fulfill those purposes? Would be relatively cheap to get working.

reaperducer 6y ago
Wouldn't a remote controlled drone over the internet fulfill those purposes? Would be relatively cheap to get working. I think the majority of people aren't very good at flying drones. Even outside, it can take a lot of practice. People don't want to spend hours or days learning how to fly a drone in their homes. They want stuff to just work.
- ansible 6y ago
  > I think the majority of people aren't very good at flying drones. Even outside, it can take a lot of practice. I crashed and broke my VTOL airplane twice last weekend. Sighs dramatically. Pilot error. More seriously, there's a couple main issues: piloting, and recharging. You'd want the drone to not crash into anything, and remote controlling the drone with Internet-induced lag would be especially challenging. There's a reason why FPV setups for race drones use analog video still. Also, just as with making a household wheeled security robot, you can do that right now, but the automatic return to the charging base is not widely available as a commercial product.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  You would use a hybrid solution, where the drone is still aware of its surroundings and provides a simplified control interface.
alkonaut 6y ago
That’s exactly what I want. Just like “wouldn’t a doorbell with a video feed connected to your own computer fulfill those purposes?” for a ring doorbell. Yes! But I want a product, not tinkering. The appeal of this isn’t just what it does but that it does it right after I unpack it. I want it to fly by itself using some wizardry that a person at a huge company cooked up. I just don’t want it to phone home to do it. That’s what I want in the “standalone” one too. Mass market product appeal. No tinkering.

babo 6y ago

and the ability to open and close doors...

humblebee 6y ago

Yes, I think this could actually be a good product, or at least something similar to it for anyone who suffers from OCD. I think a lot of smart devices can help people. Maybe there is a better product though.

chasd00 6y ago

that's an interesting thought. Use it to fly around a lake house after a storm looking for damage.

thescriptkiddie 6y ago

Why do you have an apartment that you don't use?

ponker 6y ago

I’d love a small robot that I could put inside the walls of my house that would crawl around and check for water leaks, bugs, etc.

biztos 6y ago

I also find it interesting for a place I leave empty for months at a time, but for that purpose doesn't it seem... fragile? Seriously: I haven't put in a camera because my DSL craps out every month or so and requires a hard modem reboot to reconnect, which seems like a lot to ask from the friend who checks my mail. I would love to see a solution tailored to people not in their domiciles, but I don't feel like this is it. This announcement (not yet a product!) is for people who really need to look around the places they're going to return to in a day or two anyway, max. Maybe that's a market; it's not me.

richardw 6y ago
One option for ADSL: power timer plug. Turn off from 3am for 5 min.