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Walgreens replaced some fridge doors with screens, and some shoppers hate it
- ec109685 5y agoAn article with a picture or two: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-freezer-screens/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-freezer-sc...
- nacs 5y agoThere's a video in that article too and it shows the stupidity of this design better.. So the transparent doors are now giant screens that show video ads all over them until you're in front of it. When you're in front of it, it shows all the stuff it may have inside. The "may" is where the really stupid part of this tech comes into play -- the screen shows what is available on a fully stocked shelf but when you open it to look inside, you can see there may be entire rows/products that aren't in stock (as seen in some customer videos in the article).
- MBCook 5y agoTHANK YOU. I know some people like the “low distraction” of something like CNN’s lite mode but I hate it. Since there are no pictures I can’t see what they’re talking about, and that’s often important for the story (like here). An ad blocker serves me just fine. Or I could turn on reader mode in my browser. Either way I still get the pictures. And they’re important to me.
- Gigachad 5y agoThis version is much better. Should have been the OP link. Honestly it doesn’t look terrible from a UX perspective while it’s working. Pointless maybe, but it’s much better than some displays I have seen which don’t show all the products on screen at once.
- userbinator 5y agoThe tech provides stores with an additional revenue stream and a way to modernize the shopping experience. Another example of why the word "modernize" has gained a very negative connotation for me. The freezers have front-facing sensors used to anonymously track shoppers interacting with the platform That is truly disturbing. No doubt they're going to say these screens save cooling costs as part of promoting the green-globalist agenda...
- Ekaros 5y agoNow I wonder will the cooling cost offset the life cycle cost of massive screens, or their electricity demand. And just funny question, does the light go off inside those when door is closed?
- samtho 5y agoI worked on a digital signage product back in the early 2010s that used OpenCV to track consumers using facial data. Those front facing sensors are cameras.
- the_snooze 5y ago>The screens, which were developed by the startup Cooler Screens, use a system of motion sensors and cameras to display what's inside the doors — as well as product information, prices, deals and, most appealing to brands, paid advertisements. The tech provides stores with an additional revenue stream and a way to modernize the shopping experience. I really hate the trend of putting "smart" screens and networked ads everywhere. Those startup bros can go jump off a cliff with their trash ideas. Is it really so hard for retailers to stick to their core competencies and keep the transaction simple between us? I give them money, they give me goods/services. No need to get random middlemen involved.
- shkkmo 5y agoIf they were just adding screens that created a new means of interacting, that would be much less infuriating. What makes to so bad is the removal of the standard means of interaction, forcing everyone to use the screens whether they want to or not. If I see these color door screens someplace, I am simple going to walk out and refuse to give that store any business. I refuse to support companies that are actively trying to make my life harder.
- genocidicbunny 5y agoI don't walk out. I make a point to open the doors as hard as I can to get them jammed open or bend the hinges a bit. I've managed to break one or two so far.
- jimrandomh 5y agoIf you break it on purpose, that's a crime. And if you write that that publicly, you can no longer reasonably claim it was an accident.
- genocidicbunny 5y agoI'm not breaking them on purpose. I'm just a klutz that doesn't know his own strength.
- qbasic_forever 5y agoI've been at a store that used this technology and it was obnoxious. I really don't see how it will catch on or survive in the real world. The cost to run these screens 24/7 is enormous, especially in a world where energy costs are increasing. I doubt the ad revenue they make will come anywhere near recouping the costs after the honeymoon period and investor cash runs out.
- the_snooze 5y agoIt's not just the energy cost, but also the classic problem with IoT: is the company willing to stay on top of security patches and maintain the underlying software? If not, then it's only a matter of time before the software is either abandoned by the company rendering the screens useless, or compromised by hackers to display beheading videos all over the frozen foods aisle.
- argella 5y agoI’d go with porn, but your point is good.
- kergonath 5y ago> is the company willing to stay on top of security patches and maintain the underlying software? It is much worse than that. Even companies willing to stay on top have trouble, can be affected by zero days, data leaks, and eventually stop supporting their hardware.
- confident_inept 5y agoBesides the annoying reality of not being able to see stock levels on product, when the screens go out (they do), you can't see what's in the cooler without opening the door. A solution looking for a problem for sure. Maybe next they'll try one of those fancy transparent OLED panels and run ads on it!
- bqmjjx0kac 5y agoIt certainly feels like a solution looking for a problem from the customer's perspective, but I wonder whether it is actually worthwhile from an advertising perspective. Perhaps the aggravation to customers costs less money than the revenue of new sales that wouldn't have happened without a giant display advertising to people on the other side of the store.
- goatherders 5y agoBingo. Companies of this size don't make these investments without a crystal clear business model. So while Joe consumer and most of HN decides this tech, I assure you that Walgreens has increased profits by a meaningful amount as a result of this investment.
- CoastalCoder 5y agoYou may be correct about the companies having a clear business model, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the expected profits will materialize. For example, Walgreens partnership / investment in Theranos was spectacularly costly [0]. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/13/theranos-walgreens-holmes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/13/therano...
- Talanes 5y agoThey were investing in Theranos right before this, and they're undergoing a massive shrinkage right now. Forgive me if I don't innately trust Walgreen's business savvy at the moment.
- ryandrake 5y agoIf only you could make the door out of a cheap, hard-surface material, made from abundant raw materials, one that is also transparent, allowing you to see what is inside in real time, with pretty much zero power usage.
- gruez 5y ago>with pretty much zero power usage. AFAIK one of the claims is that the doors are a net energy savings, because you can use better, opaque insulation material rather than glass.
- qbasic_forever 5y agoFar more energy and natural resources are going to be used to make those big screens than melting some sand for glass. Double wall glass doors with a good vacuum are incredibly effective insulators too. I doubt infrared radiation that goes through the glass is a big concern in the real world--unless your 7/11 is on Mercury.
- ravel-bar-foo 5y agoGlass is very energy-expensive to manufacture. It softens around 1000 degrees centigrade and melts around 1500 degrees centigrade, which makes it incredibly expensive to recycle into a product with a different geometry. For glass bottles at least, "recycling" consists of washing the bottle and shipping it back to the bottler. (Here in Korea, people use the empty bottles as ash trays, and occasionally a bottle with ash still in it is delivered to a consumer, making the news.)
- quintushoratius 5y agoI question how well bottles are being washed, if people "occasionally [find] a bottle with ash still in it".
- _ea1k 5y agoIf the goal is to save power, they should use chest freezers. They'd cost a tiny amount of space, but would save tons of power.
- 14 5y agoThis would tick me off. I think I would be annoyed and just start swinging every fridge door open as I walked by completely ignoring advertisements.
- samtho 5y agoI saw this company (Cooler Screens) pop up on a job board and I really really did not get it. What problem is being solved by replacing a clear panel with a tv screen only to have to track inventory using shoddy computer vision? Are they trying to save energy by preventing excess opens/closes? Customers already do not trust the “In Stock” status on stores’ websites, if they see an item out of stock on the screen, they will open it to see for themselves and there will be instances where the customer was right to look, further reinforcing this behavior. This entire product seems like a thinly veiled effort to push more unwanted and intrusive ads. The technologist in me wants to believe there is more to this so I would be happy to be proven wrong, if anyone else has some insight.
- sofixa 5y ago> What problem is being solved by replacing a clear panel with a tv screen only to have to track inventory using shoddy computer vision? Ads. They can make you look at an add at eye level on something you need to look at ( because you want to know if there's pizza or whatever there). It's a potentially pretty valuable ad for "super discount on X" or even regular crap.
- userbinator 5y agobecause you want to know if there's pizza or whatever there I'll just open the door.
- CamperBob2 5y agoNot before drinking a verification can, you won't.
- blihp 5y agoYou're not seeing the bigger picture... Once most of the retailers have installed the product obscuring screens, another startup can produce an Augmented Reality 'x-ray' app that lets you see what's behind the screen by using your smartphone/smart glasses/whatever. They'll make money by selling ads, of course. Another ad-tech company will help a competing retailer place an ad in the AR app telling you about their store down the street that has installed these miraculous glass doors that let you just see their products. The store you're in will pay an analytics company big bucks to determine (in part, from a data feed from the AR app) their customer abandonment rate due to the screens. This data, combined with their competitor down the street taking customers, will allow a consultant to make bank recommending the original retailer install transparent doors. Ah, the virtuous cycle of tech.
- automatoney 5y agoI view advertisements as the second hand smoke of the modern age. In theory ads are only placed by the consent of the space owner, but in practice they serve to pollute our environments in psychologically harmful ways, in the same way second hand smoke pollutes our physical environment.
- Ekaros 5y agoI wonder when the dystopia of Pohl's comes true. The Space Merchants has some interesting things about marketing. Like beaming adds to screens of vehicles and in future straight to retinas...
- int_19h 5y agoPohl already hit the jackpot with the Joymaker.
- mbg721 5y agoAt least with smoking, the person who lit the cigarette intends to consume it. Here, even in the theoretical case, the ad serves no purpose to the space owner except to the extent that other people watch it.
- SeanLuke 5y ago> Cooler Screens says 90% of consumers it has surveyed prefer its digital screens to traditional fridges That was funny.
- civilized 5y agoI wonder who did the surveys. I bet they were very... results-oriented. Or maybe they just made it up. Startup founders have done worse right?
- Ekaros 5y agoReminds me of the Yes Minister clip and getting two different answers in survey. Just have to ask bunch of questions leading to answer and then just publish that one...
- Jalad 5y agoLink for the curious: https://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA?t=60 https://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA?t=60 Starts at about 1:00. One of my favorite shows Edit: updated link, thanks @dvngnt_
- dvngnt_ 5y agohttps://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA?t=60 https://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA?t=60 here's the exact link with a time stamp
- Karellen 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks
- Khoth 5y agoI'd guess it's either a flat-out lie, or they described a hypothetical perfect version of the system and counted someone as positive if they thought there was even one slightly good thing about it.
- 5y ago
- xwdv 5y agoI don’t get why they would use opaque screens. There are transparent glass screens now, Disney uses them all the time. You could see inside and still display graphics on the glass. Fuck man…
- civilized 5y ago> Cooler Screens says 90% of consumers it has surveyed prefer its digital screens To waking up in a bathtub of ice missing a kidney, maybe.
- Animats 5y ago"The items on display don't always match up with what's inside because products are out of stock." That's been my experience. If not out of stock, perhaps shelved elsewhere. Putting signage of any kind on fridge doors in retail is annoying. Just let us see the products. Aisle clutter in supermarkets has become worse, too. In some places it's so bad that it's not worth shopping in person any more.
- lsllc 5y agoI saw these for the first time at a Walgreens in Florida recently -- I hate these things -- I want to see what's inside! (and I'm not interested in having to watch an ad before it'll tell me where the milk is). I feel like it's out of some sort of dystopian Robocob/Snowcrash-esque story.
- jimrandomh 5y agoThe Walgreens down the street from me did this. For a month after they installed them, the whole wall of fridges was offline (warm inside and no product loaded), during which time I found other stores and stopped checking. Then when they were finally working, the user experience was pretty bad. In theory, what's supposed to happen is that when you're far away it shows you a giant-font indicator of what's inside, or an ad, and then when you get close, a motion sensor detects that you're there and replaces the display with a map of the contents, that's kind of like looking through glass. The problem is that the motion sensor coverage area is too small, and the transition to map view is too slow, so you wind up standing in front of an opaque screen that's supposed to be showing you what's inside, but isn't. Then it's faster to open the door than it is to wait for it to change, so you wind up opening the door, searching for the product you wanted with the door open, and wasting a bunch of energy.
- phinnaeus 5y agoIt's already wasting a bunch of energy by simply being there, displaying whatever.
- danuker 5y agoIt could be that the fridges behind the screens are better insulated than transparent ones. But having to open them to see what's inside certainly makes it cost more.
- quintushoratius 5y agoIt's quite likely that the screen generates a lot of heat that it's pushing back into the cooler. It's probably more than would have been absorbed from ambient. So now you're paying twice for energy: once for the display, and again in increased refrigeration costs.
- chaostheory 5y agoMy experience is the same. It does eventually show you what’s inside, but it’s not faster than just opening the door. I think something like AR would make a better experience.
- michaelt 5y ago> The company wants to engage more people with advertising [...] > Retailers are eager to add new experiences to their physical stores. But many consumers aren't eager to change their habits — and they certainly aren't used to watching freezer-display ads. > "People really appreciate their routines. They're not always seeking excitement," said Julio Sevilla Has CNN introduced a parody section when I wasn't looking? Is this some sort of joke article, satirising corporate nonsense-speak and journalists blindly reprinting press releases? This isn't a matter of shoppers being scared of "change" or disliking "excitement" - nobody is "excited" to "engage with advertising", they're just inconvenienced. This is walgreens making the shopping experience worse in the hopes of making more money. How someone so unable to speak plainly could forge a career as a professional journalist I have no idea....
- Groxx 5y ago>Cooler Screens says 90% of consumers it has surveyed prefer its digital screens to traditional fridges... So apparently they're wildly unable to gather a representative sample of people, or have structured their survey to mislead them to an extreme degree. Sounds like a company to stay far away from.
- dhosek 5y agoThat 90% claim sounds like a bare-faced lie to me.
- aceazzameen 5y agoCan't lose that sweet Walgreens contract, right?
- FounderBurr 5y agoMarketing wank. Nothing screams failure like appearing on media lying about how everyone likes you so much.
- hughrr 5y agoSounds like they surveyed 9 members of the marketing and MBA class team and one software person.
- throwaways85989 5y agoThis is addressing problems that don't exist. It's solutionism at its worst. We are dumbing down machines that are inherently superior
- mhandley 5y agoIf people really don't like them, I'm surprised a little mild civil disobediance campaign hasn't broken out, such as wedging the door open after getting something out. They'd soon get the message.
- ichugwindex 5y agoThey have cameras on all of them. They could identify you can ban you. But I still agree, they should let in the san francisco shop lifters to smash these unholy screens.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cosmotic 5y agoCooler Screens CEO is either delusional or manipulative. Or has access to some unusually accurate consumer research that somehow contradicts the apparently incorrect broadly accepted truth.
- sofixa 5y agoThis is some Internet of Shit worthy shit[1] 1 https://twitter.com/internetofshit https://twitter.com/internetofshit https://www.reddit.com/r/theinternetofshit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/theinternetofshit/
- aaron695 5y ago
- JohnFen 5y agoNo. Just no. Things like this makes the shopping experience much more unpleasant. I'll certainly avoid stores that use this sort of thing while that's possible.
- Ansil849 5y agoRecall that Walgreens has a history of making moronic decisions, like contracting with Theranos in spite of receiving clear-cut warnings against doing so.
- 908B64B197 5y agoHow long until someone finds out how to stream to these displays and puts adult content on there?
- abnry 5y agoReminds me of when gas stations play adds on a screen to me while I fill up my tank. Talk about a captive audience!
- CoastalCoder 5y agoIf it's a Mobil station, I've found that one of the buttons surrounding the screen will mute it. Originally the button had "mute" clearly printed on it, but it seems to have been replaced with a totally blank keycap. It still works though.
- D13Fd 5y agoThe Walgreens by my office, in the city, got these. The motion detection seems to work fine. But it’s pretty jarring look at the beautiful, fully-stocked image on the screen but then open the door to find a picked-over, mostly-empty mess.
- alistairSH 5y agoWell on our way to the dystopian hellscape that is the Bladerunner universe. The first time I see these screens is the last time I shop at that store.
- dole 5y agoOne interesting thing I’ve noticed about these at my local WGs, they display their product cost next to the retail price when it’s showing the product, so I get a reminder that I’m paying 99 cents for a Arizona tea that cost them 4.
- paulpauper 5y agoscreens are so cheap they could be installed everywhere. install screens in the shelves so empty shelves do not look so empty
- possiblydrunk 5y agoLol. When I read the title I immediately jumped to the (silly) assumption that they replaced the doors with open mesh screen doors. Had a real hard time guessing why!
- Slix 5y agoI guess I'm in the minority, but I really like these! It's a lot easier to see what's inside than freezer doors that ice and fog up.
- silisili 5y agoAn iced or fogged up door is a maintenance issue, not a glass issue. It's like saying I like glass better than a broken lcd...
- jeltz 5y agoDo you live in a very humid climate? Because that has never been an issue for me.
- HWR_14 5y agoFreezer doors ice over and fog up? What are you talking about. I don't think I've even seen frost or fog on a freezer door. Maybe around the perimeter of the glass, but never blocking anything. In fact, that would make me suspect everything in cooler got too warm and spoiled.
- FounderBurr 5y agoNice try video door salesman.
- ichugwindex 5y agoThis guy watches tv for the commercials.
- II2II 5y ago> Walgreens risks angering them by solving a problem that shoppers didn't know existed. The company wants to engage more people with advertising (...) Contrary to a lot of claims, they are trying to solve a problem. The problem is the problem is of no interest to customers and actually creates problems for customers. I also wonder how long it will be a benefit for businesses. It is difficult to see how the advertising space can maintain its value if this is rolled out everywhere. It is difficult to see how the advertising space can maintain value once the novelty wears off and consumers largely ignore it. It is difficult to see how stores will manage the expectations and frustrations of consumers.
- dhosek 5y agoBack in the 90s during the dotcom bubble, there was a startup that planned to do things like give people free eggs with ads printed on them. I never got any free eggs and I remember thinking if you give everything away by making money on the ads, what the heck are the ads supposed to be selling? Even without the eggs, that still seems to be a problem with a lot of the internet economy—a lot of ads seem to be directed towards getting people to visit another site here they get—more ads.
- hakfoo 5y agoI don't think new value is created. What's happening is that value that used to be kept in-house is being absorbed by the AdTech middleman ecosystem. The classic example: When the local supermarket ran an ad in the daily printed newspaper, the publisher kept basically 100% of the ad spend (minus the marginal costs for newsprint, ink, and the labour to deal with the ad copy. Now they submit an ad to some network which generously kicks some percentage of that revenue back to localnewspaper.com. In this case, I'd expect that some of the money being thrown at Cooler Screens is coming from other ad spend verticals-- maybe a few less TV ads or one less page in the weekly newspaper circular. If Walgreens built their own screens it would still be a stupid idea, but it would probably be more cost-effective than paying someone else who owns the technology and is probably mostly interested in making a pitch to go public some day.
- afrcnc 5y agoshare the actual damn link.... not this lite bs... there's images in that article that make this lite version absolutely useless
- brailsafe 5y agoWorking on this must be one of those jobs you take because the pay was good and the interview was easy, so you shrug and take a paycheck for a while. Not unlike most SE jobs I guess
- sloshnmosh 5y agoWalgreens has always tried to harvest every single penny they could squeeze from their customers, mainly by selling the customers PII to anyone and everyone, so this is no big surprise to me. It reminds me of the obnoxious talking gas pumps that play ads while you’re filling your car. At first there used to be a “mute” button to where you could silence the crap and all the plastic was worn away from everyone mashing it trying to shut it up. Now I no longer see any option to mute the ads. I hate ads with a passion and won’t allow them to run on my devices. Mainly for security and privacy but the aggravation they cause is palpable. Whenever I work on someone else’s computer and open a web browser I am in shock that people can even concentrate with all the garbage on the screen.
- Underphil 5y agoThe amusing part is that most gas stations have signs asking you to stay with your vehicles whilst they're filling. Given that being in the car is not the best place to be, I tend to walk 40ft away to get away from the insanely loud adverts.
- jordemort 5y agoIt's me. I am "some shoppers."
- 310260 5y agoPraying this startup crashes and burns so I can see what's actually physically inside the fridges again. If I'm in the store, I'm already looking to buy. I don't need more advertising to encourage me. >To Avakian, it's simply an expected growing pain. Cooler Screens plans to educate >customers about the digital displays and launch features like voice recognition, >so shoppers can ask about prices or item locations. So unintuitive and user-hostile that you have to "educate" customers about them.
- ergocoder 5y agoYou gotta admire the sales skills of these founders. How the heck did they make this deal with Walgreen when it is obviously bad?
- notatoad 5y agoI'm sure Walgreens is being well compensated for this. I'm going to assume they got a bunch of VC money with a pitch of "we found a space that doesn't have ads on it yet, and we can fix that". And now they're paying more than the value of the ads to Walgreens. They'll probably raise another round of funding off the "success" of this contract, and then bail.
- barnbuilder 5y agoI guess the same way Theranos made a deal with Walgreens.
- ergocoder 5y agoTheranos is a fraud, but everyone would agree that it would be great if it worked. This fridge door is a bad idea whether it works or not.
- exodust 5y ago> If I'm in the store, I'm already looking to buy. Yep exactly. In the big chain supermarket near me they continually play their brand jingle, along with ads for themselves. The jingle is repetitive and simple, just 7 notes that match the syllables of the "lyrics" - a tedious line about fresh food. I'm already there buying stuff, so can only guess their tactic of spamming the store with their jingle, is based on some theory of reinforcement. I've also noticed a news radio program I sometimes listen to, is now taking more breaks to advertise themselves. Not programs or content, but just how good they think they are in general, and how trustworthy they are. It's self-congratulatory cringe. The person who decides if they're trustworthy is me, the listener, not them telling me over and over that I should trust them.
- dhosek 5y ago"some" shoppers? Who are the ones who like it? It's a blood nuisance to have to open the door to see if the claimed product is actually there. It's especially bad over the last two years when stuff unpredictably goes in and out of stock. Is there anyone who actually likes these monstrosities?
- alephxyz 5y agoOnly possible scenario where this might be helpful is on hot humid summer days where the inside of the glass doors are covered in frost because some idiots keep the doors open far too long when choosing their ice cream. But just having a "dumb" label outside the door would work just as well.
- pipeline_peak 5y agoThe HN user in me suspects some sort of conspiracy of this “startup” paying retailers to do this. I can’t imagine a company unwittingly annoying consumers this much. The whole idea is so unsettling and dystopian feeling, I’m sure even the people behind Cooler Screens knows it’s awful.
- 5evOX5hTZ9mYa9E 5y agoI'm certain this was a high-level deal between the two companies, and both executives got a bonus while the lower down in the org chart you go more obvious it is how awful these are.
- npmaile 5y agoI live near a walgreens with this, and the worst part about it is when the screen is broken, and it doesn't serve the basic purpose of allowing me to know what beverages are behind the window. Actually, now that I think of it when the system is "working properly" I still can't be sure of what's behind the door if I open it. Totally worthless use of technology.
- 1123581321 5y agoThis is at least partially about papering over inventory, theft or stocking neatness issues without increasing their inventory on hand or finding enough staff. Walgreens has just about had it trying to make its current retail model work in some markets. Ultimately, solutions like Cooler Screens are stopgaps on the way to smaller stores that just vend, hand out online orders, and other things that don't require managing shelves and aisles on the retail side. (Source: a regional retail manager at WBA.)
- justinlloyd 5y agoI just want Haagen Dazs ice cream. But I cannot see which freezer it is actually in until the ad stops, then it states it is in this particular freezer. But it isn't because they ran out and an employee hasn't restocked. Next the doors on the freezer will lock until the ad has finished playing all the way through, and the ad will stop playing if you look away in distraction. Also, the gas will stop pumping if you don't look at ad on the screen on the pump at the gas station and you must also verbally engage with the ad when it asks a question otherwise it stops pumping. If you answer enthusiastically it will waive the $2 surcharge because you had the audacity to use a debit card. I am so glad I am getting old and will die soon so I don't have to live in this dystopian hellhole the new generation are creating for us.
- MrMember 5y agohttps://cdn.gamer-network.net/2021/articles/2021-01-19-20-13/sony_ad_patent.jpg https://cdn.gamer-network.net/2021/articles/2021-01-19-20-13...
- screamingninja 5y agoReminds me of that episode of Black Mirror - Fifteen Million Merits
- jgod 5y agoThe Experts Have Spoken: It's Good For Us
- emptyparadise 5y agoIt's not enough to put up with the hell world you live in, you must like it too.
- lamontcg 5y agoAll this advertising shit needs to so desperately be banned for everyone's mental health but the country would probably lose its fucking mind if anyone tried, so the boring hellscape will just grind on getting worse.
- 5y ago
- MathMonkeyMan 5y agoI'm a fucking whore.
- cable2600 5y agoIt reminds me of the talking Coca Cola machine. It annoyed people a lot and they had to get rid of it.
- iamleppert 5y agoI actually really love the screens. I can’t wait until they open up their developer API! They are offering a starter kit for your home refrigerator where you can practice building ads using their WYSIWYG tool. I’m pretty psyched for the native app toolkit, for now you have to write your CoolerApp in React but pretty soon with the CoolerAppNX devkit you’ll get full native access to the live camera feeds, OpenCV and Google TPU module, even be able to read the cooler temperature in near real time! Just think of the innovative apps apps apps and experiences we’ll be able to build with those new features! CoolerGraph is coming out soon, can’t wait to attend the hack a thon at CoolerLabs!! They have free Pizza and RedBull! Sleep, code, sleep dudes!!
- ichugwindex 5y agoHow long have you been working for them?
- 34679 5y agoHow many people here who were annoyed by the experience ended up purchasing less or nothing at all as a result? The only way to make this go away is, when you come upon one of these displays, set your items down and leave without purchasing anything. Spend your money somewhere without one while you still have the option.
- squarefoot 5y agoThe next development seems easy to predict: users profiling and targeted ads through detection of the passerby's phone Bluetooth BD_ADDR, both at the counter and the fridges.
- irrational 5y agoI’d just go though and open all of the doors to find what I’m looking for. Perhaps the ad money will offset the higher electric bill.
- psyklic 5y agoThis reminds me when McDonalds cycled through fullscreen ads obscuring their digital menus. They also slowly cycled through menu items and deals, leading to awkward delays at the cash registers waiting to see the full menu.
- ahoka 5y ago"Cooler Screens CEO Avakian said he developed the concept after watching in-store customers whip out their phones to find product information and reviews." Naturally consumers want less information asymmetry when buying things, that's why they seek external reviews. Let's try to add more to this asymmetry by hiding the actual product behind some manipulative short films! Why do American companies hate the free market?
- FounderBurr 5y agoHey Walgreens, when I see this I’ll just never return to your store to subject myself to this garbage. Same as I never return to gas stations with screeching televisions on the gas pumps or retail stores with a million blaring televisions shouting ads in every isle.
- hyperman1 5y agoI recently went to the local Action, and it turns out they were 'running an experiment': They want to push people to the self checkout as much as possible, so they actually decided to close cashier checkouts for everyone paying with cards. In fact, all cashier checkouts were simply closed, and if you wanted to pay with cash, they had to call around to find a cashier and open one. Self checkout zone looked like a slice of hell. All self checkout machines were non stop signalling they needed attention from the cashier. The only available cashier, a young girl, was running around like crazy, everybody angry at her, and she was excusing herself to all clients. She was completely exhausted. There was a long row behind the self check out. I want to buy an USB stick. These are only available at cashier checkouts, and I am not allowed there unless I pay with paper money - this was confirmed by another staff member. I kid you not, you actually can't buy an USB stick anymore, except with cash. So I hid my purchases in a corner (with an OK from their staff of course), went outside the shop, used my bank card at an ATM to get some paper money, went back inside the shop. The girl opened a cashier checkout, gave me the USB stick, and I paid cash and got my change. She actually looked glad to be anywhere else than in self checkout hell for a minute. Meanwhile, multiple people were actually literally screaming for attention in the self checkout zone. When we got back, all 6 self checkout machines were blocked for some dumb whiney reason, and everyone was glaring angrily at both of us for the additional delay. The basic idea for a shop is: I get stuff, they get money. It seems a lot of the big chains are so far gone trying to optimize whatever metric, they forgot this basic idea.
- jaclaz 5y agoSide question. How much would one of these screens/doors cost? They are essentially (bar the software) a huge TV (or digital signage) screen + sensors/webcams (and most probably Wi-Fi or similar), possibly with some added extra cost for thermal insulation and/or "side" cooling. But they are huge, something like 80 cm x 2 m, using diagonal inches something like 85-90. Wouldn't that have a cost in the 2,000-3,000 US$ range each?
- jurassic 5y agoThis is right up there with gas station pumps that blare video ads at max volume while pumping gas. The “experience” is extra good when a different ad kicks off simultaneously for the person on the other side of the pump, or the next pump over. Somebody should be facing criminal penalties for these.
- jhpaul 5y agoFYI you can often press the (unlabeled) second soft button from the top on the right side of the screen to mute video ads on the gas pump.
- spicyusername 5y agoPlease no more ads. We're building such an inhuman ad-centric hellscape. The madness has to stop.
- XCSme 5y agoWhy not put the ads somewhere else? Also, you are already in the shop, going to buy stuff anyway, what's the point of advertising the same product that's on the shelf?