5 ms·

I loathe the camera and the little screen that shows me standing at the self check out. It is degrading. Self check out needs to go away.

janosdebugs 3y ago
The camera could go away instead of the whole system. I don't know how much a problem theft is on the other side of the pond, but we have self-checkout on a product weight basis in Austria and it works just fine.
isthatafact 3y ago
Self-checkout, when implemented in a sensible way, is fast, efficient, painless. and generally pleasant. The article is describing a bad implementation that apparently uses some "AI" nonsense to insinuate that a customer (and probably most customers) is attempting to steal. It sounds even worse than the weight sensors that many earlier self-checkout have used, which, besides being error prone, made it impossible to put groceries into any kind of re-usable bag or backpack until after first finishing scanning and paying for everything while attempting to balance the entire load of groceries onto a tiny platform/scale like some reverse jenga tower game.
- cge 3y ago
  At least in California and Europe, most self checkouts I have seen either have a button to note that you've put your own bag on the scale, or just ignore weight put on the scale before you start scanning. Are there self checkouts that don't do this?
  - frereubu 3y ago
    My experience of those buttons (Sainsburys in the UK) is that they fail at lesat 50% of the time and require someone to come over to verify the bag before you can continue scanning.
- downut 3y ago
  "Self-checkout, when implemented in a sensible way, is fast, efficient, painless. and generally pleasant." As stated, the quoted sentence above says nothing; it has no content because of the caveat. Let's simplify on the way to dragging reality back in: "Self-checkout is fast, efficient, painless. and generally pleasant." I have never ever seen an implementation that makes bulk goods checkout, as is required for say vegetables/fruits/grains etc., "fast, efficient, painless, and generally pleasant." How could it be? You have to look up each item on a stupid touch screen, weigh it, and bag it. Lots of potential for callous mistakes that are annoying as hell to fix, so I never fix them, and now I'm a criminal. Ok, so now they're bagging up the bulk goods so they can barcode the batch, and... I get to buy 3lbs of zuccini, with a bad one visibly lurking in there, or nothing. Awesome technology thanks bros.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    > You have to look up each item on a stupid touch screen, weigh it, and bag it. It's pretty easy at Whole Foods. You hit a button for "produce", type "gr" and select "green pepper", confirm and you're done. I've never had any trouble at all. I can't even imagine what exactly could go wrong?
  - isthatafact 3y ago
    Maybe I do not buy enough different vegetables in a single trip to feel at all inconvenienced by the weighing vegetable problem. I also understand that some people will always prefer employee/human checkout for various reasons. I would expect that AI could help to identify what vegetable is being weighed, but it will probably never know whether or not that zucchini is "organic"/"bio". As a fairly low tech (but maybe too costly) solution, I could imagine a system where the vegetables at the store live on a scale that spits out a bar code value based on the weight of what a customer removes, which the customer would then take to scan at checkout.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
    At Wegmans you weigh the produce & print the labels in the produce department, before you ever get to the checkouts. At checkout you scan the barcode that got printed. Fast, efficient, and painless. Of course that's one regional grocery chain, and typically a more "high end" one than Walmart. But that furthers the point, self checkout can be nice, it just depends on the implementation.
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
The camera and screen seem to be there as a deterrent. I hate them too but they're easy to avoid by not shopping at locations with them. My guess is their existence is based on the "shrinkage" rate at each store. Of course, this choice becomes more difficult if you don't have the means to travel further, something much more likely for those who live in an area with high shrinkage rates.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ruined 3y ago
it won't go away, they need that for the district attorney
crazygringo 3y ago
I'm genuinely curious, what is degrading about it? Stores are already full of cameras. Things like ATM's all have cameras filming your transaction too. What's different about a self-checkout one?

janosdebugs 3y ago

The camera could go away instead of the whole system. I don't know how much a problem theft is on the other side of the pond, but we have self-checkout on a product weight basis in Austria and it works just fine.

isthatafact 3y ago

Self-checkout, when implemented in a sensible way, is fast, efficient, painless. and generally pleasant. The article is describing a bad implementation that apparently uses some "AI" nonsense to insinuate that a customer (and probably most customers) is attempting to steal. It sounds even worse than the weight sensors that many earlier self-checkout have used, which, besides being error prone, made it impossible to put groceries into any kind of re-usable bag or backpack until after first finishing scanning and paying for everything while attempting to balance the entire load of groceries onto a tiny platform/scale like some reverse jenga tower game.

cge 3y ago
At least in California and Europe, most self checkouts I have seen either have a button to note that you've put your own bag on the scale, or just ignore weight put on the scale before you start scanning. Are there self checkouts that don't do this?
- frereubu 3y ago
  My experience of those buttons (Sainsburys in the UK) is that they fail at lesat 50% of the time and require someone to come over to verify the bag before you can continue scanning.
downut 3y ago
"Self-checkout, when implemented in a sensible way, is fast, efficient, painless. and generally pleasant." As stated, the quoted sentence above says nothing; it has no content because of the caveat. Let's simplify on the way to dragging reality back in: "Self-checkout is fast, efficient, painless. and generally pleasant." I have never ever seen an implementation that makes bulk goods checkout, as is required for say vegetables/fruits/grains etc., "fast, efficient, painless, and generally pleasant." How could it be? You have to look up each item on a stupid touch screen, weigh it, and bag it. Lots of potential for callous mistakes that are annoying as hell to fix, so I never fix them, and now I'm a criminal. Ok, so now they're bagging up the bulk goods so they can barcode the batch, and... I get to buy 3lbs of zuccini, with a bad one visibly lurking in there, or nothing. Awesome technology thanks bros.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  > You have to look up each item on a stupid touch screen, weigh it, and bag it. It's pretty easy at Whole Foods. You hit a button for "produce", type "gr" and select "green pepper", confirm and you're done. I've never had any trouble at all. I can't even imagine what exactly could go wrong?
- isthatafact 3y ago
  Maybe I do not buy enough different vegetables in a single trip to feel at all inconvenienced by the weighing vegetable problem. I also understand that some people will always prefer employee/human checkout for various reasons. I would expect that AI could help to identify what vegetable is being weighed, but it will probably never know whether or not that zucchini is "organic"/"bio". As a fairly low tech (but maybe too costly) solution, I could imagine a system where the vegetables at the store live on a scale that spits out a bar code value based on the weight of what a customer removes, which the customer would then take to scan at checkout.
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
  At Wegmans you weigh the produce & print the labels in the produce department, before you ever get to the checkouts. At checkout you scan the barcode that got printed. Fast, efficient, and painless. Of course that's one regional grocery chain, and typically a more "high end" one than Walmart. But that furthers the point, self checkout can be nice, it just depends on the implementation.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

The camera and screen seem to be there as a deterrent. I hate them too but they're easy to avoid by not shopping at locations with them. My guess is their existence is based on the "shrinkage" rate at each store. Of course, this choice becomes more difficult if you don't have the means to travel further, something much more likely for those who live in an area with high shrinkage rates.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ruined 3y ago

it won't go away, they need that for the district attorney

crazygringo 3y ago

I'm genuinely curious, what is degrading about it? Stores are already full of cameras. Things like ATM's all have cameras filming your transaction too. What's different about a self-checkout one?