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Cooler screens
- pimlottc 3y agoSome images in this article for those who haven’t seen them: https://www.businessinsider.com/cooler-screens-make-it-harder-to-shop-tiktokers-say-2023-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/cooler-screens-make-it-harde...
- skrebbel 3y agoThanks. I thought the article was some sort of future fiction thing but apparently this is real?
- lucideer 3y agoI've seen these in bars for a few years now - the beer bottle fridges behind the bar will run animated ads for the beer brands in the fridge (mostly Heineken)
- skrebbel 3y agoSounds like a bar with a great atmosphere.
- lucideer 3y agoTypically the bigger dive bars or pub-club chain types; definitely an atmosphere many enjoy, though very much a matter of taste. And/or sports bars.
- bombcar 3y agoNow there would be a use for these - imagine a wall of them along the side of the bar, with the game currently being watched spread across them all. Only annoyance would be when the bartender has to open the door during a touchdown.
- lucideer 3y agoThe coolers I've seen have translucent doors (see comment above), so the game wouldn't be super clear. The Walgreens coolers could do it but I presume you're joking as it would have no concrete benefits over putting a normal screen in front of a bunch of coolers (or even projecting onto some white coolers).
- bombcar 3y agoThe only real benefit would be getting a large screen out of stupid VC money. These things are obviously a solution in search of a problem. MAYBE it would make sense on the front of a vending machine (because then you could hide the mechanics and perhaps get them more dense).
- swayvil 3y agoI love to get high while surrounded by animated salesmen.
- lucideer 3y agoEdit: correction on my above comment (past editing deadline). The animated doors I've seen in bars are transparent LCDs, but the Walgreens screens in the businessinsider article above appear to be opaque & have a full (thick) monitor backing when opened. So they're... even less futuristic??? An example of the product I've seen in bars: http://damoccoolers.com/ http://damoccoolers.com/ - notably the contents of the cooler remain clearly visible most of the time.
- jcrawfordor 3y agoDamoc is the principle and pretty much only competitor to Cooler Screens, in the cooler-with-a-screen space. I hesitate to endorse any implementation of this as a good idea, but if you accept the premise as Cooler Screens themselves articulate it, it's pretty obvious that Damoc has come up with a far better product. I suspect that's part of the air of desperation in the Cooler Screens/Walgreens relationship. Cooler Screens doesn't actually have leadership on the technology so they need to hang on to their major customers to appear to be the mature, ready for business option.
- pockybum522 3y agoI'm so glad I wasn't the only one that came to the comments to try and figure out if this was dystopian fiction or not. As usual, reality continues to disappoint with the answer.
- dopidopHN 3y agoYeah I saw them as described in the article since 2 solid years? They are mostly broken?
- arc-in-space 3y agoLike the other commenter I also had to look this up to realize this isn't some sort of weird fiction.
- wongarsu 3y agoWow, that looks terrible. I get that they want to play ads, but I don't see how these things don't reduce sales
- argiopetech 3y agoPerhaps the advertising revenue makes up for lost sales...
- camtarn 3y agoHoly crap. That looks like some sort of dystopian nightmare, garishly bright screens crowding in from all sides.
- Izkata 3y agoThe last one is great: > Out of order, please do not open > [opens door] > [finds food] And it's not like it's the cooling unit that broke, you can see when the door is open it's still one big area connected to the working one next to it.
- coldpie 3y agoI made a positive statement to myself, as I left my teens, that I would never become that old man that hides from technology and gets left behind. But boy, I think I'm getting there. Between crap like this and the massively unethical "gig labor" economy and VR headsets, I want no part of what the world is becoming.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agoIt's not that tech, or even new tech, is a bad thing; it's that people keep making awful things with new tech.
- ThatGeoGuy 3y agoI think the core difference is that as a teen we see people reject tech and assume that it's the tech itself being rejected. That there is some underlying progress being shunned. As an adult I realize that the tech is a layer of gloss and glamour on actively making the world worse than I knew it could be. I didn't have that perspective as a teen because as a teen I hadn't known the world.
- Terr_ 3y agoEx: "Sonny, I'm not against people communicating easily with their friends and sharing pictures, I'm against what I see as a wave of addictive gamified narcissistic codependency."
- ktosobcy 3y agoWhat an absolutely, utterly stupid idea and a way to complicate something simple...
- hellotheretoday 3y agoadvertising industry continues its march as a cancerous growth on society, news at 11. Why not waste a bunch of resources to bother people and make the experience objectively worse? It’s okay, we have some cherry picked market research we conducted that says 90+% of people like not seeing if the fridge is actually stocked before opening it. Definitely no shenanigans there! If this catches on I’m sure they’ll eventually have them make sound too, noise pollution is no big deal right? Why not eventually make you watch a 5 second ad to open the freezer to force engagement? Itll be like YouTube except at the end you get eggs and Gatorade. How fun! Maybe you can get a coupon for 5 cents off if you watch 10 ads on the door. Then it’s like they’re doing you a favor!
- lopis 3y agoThis sort of thing is just so horrible and inhumane for anyone with sensory issues. Going grocery shopping can already be a struggle to some people. I think this hasn't crossed the Atlantic yet, but I'm ready to stop going to any supermarket that implements this sort of aggression on customers eyes...
- kleene_op 3y agoDelightful read, thank you! What a Kafkaesque world we found ourselves stepping into.
- thih9 3y agoTo be fair, this technology could have been introduced in a way that benefits the customer. Some products are smaller than the others, making them harder to spot. Having a well organized and clearly visible directory that is also a guiding system might help. Then again, stores like this are already doing their best to confuse, with those screens or without. No reason to believe screens have been introduced to help the customer.
- Nextgrid 3y agoOn the other hand, displaying products in a uniform size with a front 2D view means you lose a lot of the context that you subconsciously use to spot a product, so while it might make otherwise hard-to-notice products easier to spot the first time, it makes it way harder to find it again because everything kinda just blends in together.
- bayindirh 3y agoHowever, most fridges are stocked with the same order, so I can just sub-cortically go to the fridge and look to the exact point to see whatever I want is there or not. I do my shopping like that. First fridge set, third fridge, bottom shelf: Milk. Same set, last fridge, second shelf, right: My favorite cheese. That's time efficient.
- wakeupcall 3y agoAt least where I shop, on a shelf if a product itself is smaller, more rows of them are used to that the space on the shelf is roughly the same, even though each row might not be stocked to the full depth of the shelf. In most cases at least. Upper/lower rows are generally where you can find smaller/niche products are more random on that front. Like the article explains, the shelf placement has in most cases been negotiated and/or maximized for profit. The screens will not help: I expect them doing exactly the same: scale products to subtly promote/demote depending on agreements. They will do this in addition to what is currently being already done, so it's likely a net loss for consumers.
- the_gipsy 3y agoThere is basically nothing that would net improve UX here. Amazing that they managed to raise millions.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- alias_neo 3y agoMy wife stopped into a local supermarket (in the UK) a couple of weeks ago to grab some things, she came out slightly puzzled and said to me; something along the lines of "what a pain in the arse; all of the freezers have black glass now and I had to open each one to find out what was in them". I was equally puzzled at why on earth they might have done this; It finally occurs to be, having read this, that they must have been screens, but they were off. Fantastic.
- seanalltogether 3y agoAre they infecting us in the UK as well? I've yet to see a screen on any of our local shops yet but I've been worried this nonsense will make it to us as well.
- alias_neo 3y agoI can't think of what else it could have been, but this would make sense based on what she described. I haven't seen it myself, and I don't fancy a supermarket trip _just_ to check. It's also not one we frequent so it may be a while before I witness it for myself.
- developer93 3y agoWrite or tweet them, you might be able to head it off at the pass.
- epc 3y agoWas it possible that she was wearing polarized glasses? I had this experience with the cooler screens at a Walgreens in Miami Beach. I wear polarized sunglasses. I didn't realize the windows were lit until I got very close and took my sunglasses off.
- BizarroLand 3y agoOne 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.
- m463 3y agoIs anyone else repulsed by this stuff? The gas pumps that play advertisements while your car fills are incredibly obnoxious and makes me regret being a customer. I think of "tax what you want less of".
- bayindirh 3y agoIf we start having these here, I'll possibly start ordering online prevent going to store itself. It's more work everyone. Workers need to design the screens according to product inside, I need to wait to see whether my favorite cheese has moved for "engagement", etc. I absolutely hate to be held hostage by ads.
- the_gipsy 3y agoI stopped going to my local station brand that blares ads non-stop over loudspeakers while pumping. Nobody ever measures lost sales due to annoyed customers, it contradicts someone else's project, politics. Like that website that you immediately close when it bombards you with engagement popups.
- petesergeant 3y ago> I stopped going to my local station brand that blares ads non-stop over loudspeakers while pumping. I worry about the feedback loop here. You stopped going because of the ads, but unless the person making the decisions knows that, then these things don't change. I don't have a solution.
- the_gipsy 3y agoThe person just wants to collect a "project successfully executed" score. Nobody else in the organization really cares either, because the organization is way too complex and works to sustain itself rather than the customer or even profits. It's exactly like those pages that bombard you with engagement popups as soon as they load: they only measure increase of engagement, but never the portion of users that close the page instantly. I don't really care though. Gas quality is the same across brands.
- sspiff 3y agoA fun aside: Cooler Screens, the company making these, used to be the CEO of Walgreens, and Walgreens is their only "whale" customer. Walgreens began to sour on the idea of the idea of these screens, and the current CEO basically cancelled the whole deal when he came in, calling them ugly, costly and ineffective. Cooler Screens has been forced to take back many of the screens, which are custom made to the size of the Walgreens coolers, and cannot be resold of reused without getting new coolers to go with them. Cooler Screens is suing Walgreens over this, but this is very much looking like a failed dystopian experiment.
- dna_polymerase 3y agoThis is all covered in the post.
- wffurr 3y agoYes way way down in the (admittedly entertaining and well-written) post. I thought the comment was a useful summary.
- sspiff 3y agoSorry, 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).
- BoorishBears 3y agoThe 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.
- drivers99 3y agoI found it hard to read as well, and confirmed reader view in Firefox helped a lot.
- dusted 3y agoThat's some cyberpunk dystopia right there, gross. (Don't get me wrong, I _LOVE_ cyberpunk dystopia, in my entertainment fiction, music, art and vide-ogames, but not IRL please)
- Negitivefrags 3y agoAt the start of the article my assumption was that the reason to do this was to save power. After all, the big glass front is not very thermally efficient. Regular fridges like you have at home have much more insulated doors. But then we find out that not only is there still glass behind the screen, but also the screen itself is very hot and therefore consumes a lot of power. Madness.
- mrtesthah 3y agoI have to wonder whether the coolers can even maintain their target temperature with this set up -- maybe health inspectors should get involved.
- _3u10 3y agoThis will thankfully take years, hopefully decades, to get to South America. We still have straws that work.
- IggleSniggle 3y agoOh, yeah, straws! We have those. They connect to your smartphone and have a meter so that you can be charged by the sip! Pretty cool tech. I know what you mean about having some that still work, since they're always breaking down. (j/k)
- robertlagrant 3y agoI was assuming this was some sort of smart shelves idea: you just walk up to the image, scan a QR code, and in the back a human/robot adds your shopping to a cart that you pick up on the way out, and you're automatically billed. But it's just pictures of what's behind the door when you open it?
- yvdriess 3y agoWorse, it's an ad delivery platform.
- alpaca128 3y agoYep. I can't see any upside in those things, every aspect of it just sucks. The only way this could be even worse and more hostile is if it was used for flashing advertisements.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoHalf the time the pictures on the door aren't even correct.
- johnnyworker 3y agoWhat a waste of energy, what a destruction of resources, what a needless cause of toxic materials in landfills. Shame on everyone involved.
- nicoburns 3y agoIf they enable thicker insulation, it’s possible this may actually save power. Thas the only I can think for doing this.
- seszett 3y agoThat's what I thought at first but since they use transparent doors (covered by the screens) for the inside-facing cameras, they are really nothing more than an added heat source close to the coolers.
- Symbiote 3y agoAn opaque door and a cardboard printout could achieve that.
- rglullis 3y agoYou know what else enables thicker insulation and doesn't require a computer screen and e-waste? Thicker insulation.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoIt's not feasible to make glass doors on coolers much thicker, or else they'd be too heavy to move for a significant portion of the population without a motor or hydraulics.
- briHass 3y agoInsulating glass better doesn't usually involve making the glass thicker; glass is a reasonably good heat conductor. It usually involves more, thinner sheets of glass stacked with air gaps between them. Argon is often used instead of air (nitrogen/oxygen) because it is a better insulator.
- alpaca128 3y agoI cannot wait for open source AR headsets with builtin ad blockers. That would be modern tech I could get hyped about.
- mrtesthah 3y agoA can of paint can accomplish the same thing, though, and everyone else gets to benefit from that, too.
- einpoklum 3y agoWait a minute, do you mean to tell me that programmable displays now cover (chilled) storage shelves in "supermarket"-type stores? At first I thought this item was about walls-of-cooler-fans, like this: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/sites/datacenterknowledge.com/files/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/fb-fanwall-lulea.jpg https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/sites/datacenterknowledg...
- RetroTechie 3y agoThe reliability issues are surprising: First on some testbench, developing software, power supply, (physical) install procedures, etc. With that done, one would expect to outfit a few stores to see how they work IRL. But no: "The initial round of installations in 2018 reached 10,300 screens in 700 stores." As part of a $200 million plan to cover 2,500 stores. From testbench to fitting 10k screens across 700 stores, without intermediate testrun in a few stores?!? On the plus side: if this crashes & burns (pun intented) then it's mostly VC going up in smoke. Hopefully eating profit from Walgreens who dared to go into consumer-hostile territory. And showing other chains not to do this. Also the difference between the firms' marketing research & actual reception by consumers is baffling. Probaby: "Or perhaps the surveys backing this data were only ever collected in the first two days following installation at Walgreens locations adjacent to dispensaries holding free pre-roll promotions." Of course regular shoppers are not Cooler Screens' customers. Or even chain owners(?). The brands they sell advertising space to, are. There could be 1 consumer-friendly use: looking up label info, ingredients, nutritional value, vegetarian / vegan / halal etc, perhaps compare with alternative products. Without having to open door & grab product. Only a small screen per section would suffice. But nope... The whole concept is just bad all around. Perhaps it's good thing this initial roll-out was poorly implemented.
- Olreich 3y agoVC money going up in flames has a tendency to kill their other invested-in companies through increased pressure to become the unicorn that digs them out of the hole. Hopefully this VC doesn’t invest heavily in anything actually good.
- fy20 3y agoI work in digital signage. We don't do these, but we do have other products aimed at retail. Most of these displays are powered by run of the mill Windows machines. Often they are just standard off the shelf hardware, which when packed in an enclosed space with other electronics, and wrapped with cardboard, doesn't last too long. Even the screens are often just standard bigbox store TVs, although some manufactures do make displays specifically for digital signage (for 10x the price). We have our own hardware running a custom Linux distro, and it's designed to operate in these sorts of environments. However not all accessories are. Right now we are trying to figure out what to do with a camera which is only designed to operate in environments under 50c where we keep having hardware failures. The budget for installations like this most likely comes from the marketing department. So instead of paying for print ads with no idea how well they convert, the money is spent on digital signage which can at least track basic data like the number of impressions. Unfortunately in this case, it's probably treated like a win as they get more analytics data than they did before (impressions, door opens, open time).
- dmd 3y agoWow. I had no idea this is why all the fridges at my Walgreens got turned opaque so you have to open them to see what's in them. I even asked the people working there - they told me "it's black to let in less light so it doesn't warm up".
- developer93 3y agoConsidering black absorbs more heat than white, that made no sense in the first place
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- swader999 3y agoI wonder if it will interface with the new Apple goggles. Screens looking at screens! Still will have to touch the box with the food in it. This will help make the insect meals look more appealing at least.
- JR1427 3y agoI have very rarely had the urge to vandalise something, and never acted upon it, but this screens might tip me over the edge!
- psd1 3y ago"vandalism" implies destruction of something of value. I propose the phrase "guerrilla maintenance".
- brk 3y agoI encountered these at a fairly typical Walgreens about 2 years ago. My initial reaction was "worst idea ever". I don't recall any of the screens not working, but it did make me feel like the entire shopping experience was worse, and the screens added no value". I will sometimes buy a drink at a drugstore when picking up a prescription or some sundry items, but these screens just discourage me from wasting time with that whole process, the UX is really bad. If they were playing ads I would actively avoid that entire aisle.
- bombcar 3y agoThe point isn't to make your experience better. It's so they can coerce the brands inside the cooler to pay them to show them, just like (I suspect) much of Google Ads revenue is making sure that the top result for a search on "Coca Cola" isn't "Pepsi".
- executesorder66 3y agoIf these ever showed up in my city I would vandalize them every time I saw them, just out of pure rage and spite.
- edeion 3y agoWere these screens e-ink, wouldn't they allow for doors that are better insulated? This could yield lower power consumption, couldn't it? On the other hand, door insulation might be insignificant if the fridge is opened often enough. Which is likely what any retailer hopes for.
- tech_ken 3y agoGiven the importance of color to branding I think e-ink is a nonstarter in it's current mass-produced form.
- psd1 3y agoColour e-ink is available for retail purchase, and the colour reproduction is passable. The refresh time is big fractions of a minute, but that's OK for static displays. Obviously that misses the entire point of this parasiteware, which is advertising and tracking.
- tech_ken 3y agoThat's a good point, and tbh I was aware of color e-ink but I assumed the price difference was enough to be a non-starter for a (parasiteware) company.
- neilv 3y agoI'd prefer Walgreens invest their IT innovation energy into their Web sites, and their pickup&delivery operations. Sometimes it's fine, and I've had worse healthcare IT experiences, but when something goes wrong for me involving that, it's alarming/infuriating to think how scrod people will be who are non-techies and/or who are limited due to illness. I've seen great work by Walgreens pharmacists&pharmtechs, and hope for other aspects of Walgreens and CVS to consistently rise to that level of greatness. They are first go-to institutions for some aspects of critical healthcare, not 7-11s nor gas station convenience stores.
- karles 3y agoWho on earth has a "Cooler screen preference" (refering to the statement on their website)? Truly a first world problem, and another things we don't really need... The only redeeming quality is that they apparently "Drive TikTok'ers nuts" according to Businessinsider...
- koromak 3y agoSomeone in the comments here absolutely worked on these, and knew it was garbage the entire time
- jcpst 3y agoWhen I read this I thought it might have been satire. Then I read the comments here and it sunk in that this is real. I hope I never come across this in real life.
- scrumper 3y agoA tempting target for a bit of hacktivism - break in and display some Banksys, pages from Marx, porn, whatever. Seems like there's some issues with the hardware engineering so no particular reason to expect the software side to be any better. I have seen these in the wild. They're hilariously awful. Best thing about them is the computer.rip article which is entertaining and well written.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoI just had a terrible experience with these at my local Walgreens. The Walgreens itself is in a very poor state, understaffed with unshelved stock sitting in shipping boxes up and down the aisles. In the cooler aisle I was just looking for some ice cream, and I had to open 5-6 doors to find it. Not only were the displays wrong, upon opening the coolers they were mostly empty. It was one of those times where I felt like I could be living in some sort of technological satire.
- egypturnash 3y agoI hate these things, I have seen them in some of the Walgreens around town and I just keep on thinking about the energy wasted both by lighting up the whole screen brightly enough to see in the store, and by customers opening the doors up so they can see what's actually there and letting more cool air out. I've never seen them displaying ads, just big graphics saying "WATER" or "ICE CREAM" or "MILK" or whatever when there's nobody in front of them. And I find it kind of fascinating how, when they do notice someone's in front of them and deign to switch to showing the inventory, my brain just completely slides off of the crisp pictures of the drinks on a bright white background. Even before the first time I opened one up to find that it was inaccurate, it felt like my brain just knew that the inventory would not necessarily match what would actually be in there, so why bother wasting energy parsing it? (And this is with them all working, largely as designed.) I am glad to know they are on the way out. "'Vegas' in a derogatory way" is a good summation of my reaction to them.
- Mistletoe 3y ago“If there are eyes somewhere, put a screen in front of it.” could be the mantra for the 21st century so far. I wonder and worry about the tablet toddlers in the shopping cart and at restaurants and what kind of world they will create when they have spent their whole lives looking at a reality several times removed from Plato’s shadows on the wall of the cave. These stupid cooler screens are just more fake reality for them to consume. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
- scetron 3y agoThe show Legion had an excellent vignette about this very topic near the end of season 2. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHj2slKBF98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHj2slKBF98 for reference). I thought it was pretty well done, although it doesn't really answer any questions, just raises the topic.
- naikrovek 3y agothe future could have been amazing but advertisers only view things as places to put advertisements. i have a strong feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better.
- PaulHoule 3y agoHalf of me thinks this is a stupid idea but the other half of me is fascinated with "mixed reality" turned inside out and would love the opportunity to paint motion graphics on a canvas this big. --- Bloomberg Businessweek has run a series of articles about the problems at Walgreens. https://www.google.com/search?q=walgreens+bloomberg https://www.google.com/search?q=walgreens+bloomberg They just settled a shareholder lawsuit over the failed takeover of Rite Aid. (I patronize Walgreens quite a lot because they are one of the closest stores to my location, mine used to be a Rite Aid.) Before that they merged with the Boots chain in the U.K. and got the idea that they could increase sales in the front of the store (e.g. not pharmacy) but they didn't seem to understand the "cost disease" in the U.S. that makes health care an order of magnitude more expensive than anything else such that CVS, doubling down on health care, had the right strategy. The pharmacy staff at our Walgreens deal heroically with a huge amount of brokenness, there was the time I needed a prescription filled in a hurry and they called around and found a competing pharmacy that had it in stock and sent over all my data including my insurance for one of those "seamless" experiences that marketers are always talking about. Then there was the time I came on Friday and they told me they could have it ready in 30 minutes but I said "No, I'll come tomorrow because I want to make it to a football game" and they said it would be ready the next day. Well the next day they weren't able to fill any prescriptions because of some electrical failure that had technicians working in there. It turned out the pharmacist, because of a worker shortage, had driven two hours to get to work that morning! He also told me that they couldn't fill the prescription just yet anyway because my refill only became available the next day to which my reply was "I wanted to get the ball started early in case something went wrong."
- RetroTechie 3y ago> Half of me thinks this is a stupid idea but the other half of me is fascinated with "mixed reality" turned inside out and would love the opportunity to paint motion graphics on a canvas this big. This would be a nice target for some guerilla hacking. Have some Pac-Man ghosts chasing each other from screen to screen, or something like that.
- ben1040 3y agoJust loved this quote from the Cooler Screen people: >When you think about it within the context of "I'm in front of an ice cream door and I want to buy," you have the ability to isolate the message to exactly what a consumer is focused on at this point in time based on the distance that they are from the door. This also is achieved by a sign taped to the glass saying “ice cream, buy one get one free,” but where’s the VC money in that?
- pfgallagher 3y agoI used to work at Cooler Screens, if anyone has any questions :D
- topaz0 3y agoWhat part did you work on?
- pfgallagher 3y agoI was on the Retail Value Add (RVA) team, which primarily handles the backend providing the content to the doors, as well as an interface for clients to update said content.
- ranger207 3y agoWhy'd you join? What was the vibe in the company?
- pfgallagher 3y agoSome friends worked there. The vibe was very corporate for a startup; they definitely took a lot of management cues from Walgreens.
- tech_ken 3y agoWas 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?
- pfgallagher 3y agoUnlike 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 straightforward - show contextual ads to customers seconds before they make a purchase.
- gwbas1c 3y agoIMO: If they are worried about energy efficiency: Triple pane glass with (I can't remember) gas between the panes is what we all have in our homes. Seems like a case of someone letting their imagination run away with tech, without realizing that a simple solution, and less invasive test-marketing, is a much better approach.
- toywinder 3y agoI encountered one of these about a year ago at a random stop for drinks. All the complaints about them are right on the mark. If I see cooler screens. You will never see me in that store again.
- ranger207 3y agoThere's a Walgreens right in front of my apartment. In the ~3 years I've lived here I've been in there ~3 times, mostly because of these screens
- jagged-chisel 3y agoThe screens bring you in once a year? Or do they prevent you visiting more?
- qingcharles 3y agoI hate these things. I shop at Walgreens because it is the only grocery store for several miles, and they have these on all the coolers. They have never once accurately shown what is actually in the coolers. All it does is tease the hell out of you by showing products on the shelves that aren't there when you open the door. And you have to open the door and let the hot air in just to see what is actually in there.
- theandrewbailey 3y agoI suppose there's the option of playing dumb if you don't like them. Cashier (the only one left that's not a robot): Did you find everything you want? Me: I went into the aisle where the pop was, but couldn't find any. I saw plenty of TVs though. Cashier: We don't sell any TVs. Me: I don't care. I wanted pop, not TVs.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bombcar 3y agoCompanies have removed all feedback options, so the customer is left with suffer or kill the company. I think Walgreens is solidly heading toward the second.
- gertrunde 3y agoSome of these complaints remind me of the menu screens in places like McDonalds. i.e. Holding up the queue because I'm unable to choose what I want from the menu, because the menu has temporarily changed into something else, and I have to wait for it to cycle around again.
- tech_ken 3y agoCrazy to think how much time and money went into something like this; what a hilarious and tragic waste. Imagine a world where those resources got used to like, build affordable housing or buy insulin for people something. Instead we're breaking a product that works great as-is on the off-chance we can push people to buy Monster instead of a Red Bull or whatever.
- psd1 3y agoIt grieves me that some twats made a pile of money from this. I mean, there's a kind of honesty in making your money as a meth dealer. This product is like co-opting healthcare budget for shitting in a water fountain.
- jw_cook 3y agoIn 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 of view while the screen contacts a cloud service to obtain an advertisement that is contextually related to it."
- the_crocodile 3y agoLove 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.
- hbn 3y agoI was put off when I first scrolled the page and saw how long the article is, but it's really well-written with engaging storytelling. Another great line: > 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.
- Terr_ 3y ago> Cooler Screens' CRO, in the same interview, describes the devices as "a six-foot canvas with a 4K resolution where brands can share their message with a captive audience." > I'm not sure that we're really captive in Walgreens, although the constant need to track down a Walgreens correction officer to unlock the cell in which they have placed the hand lotion does create that vibe.
- cancerhacker 3y agoIt was at that point that I realized that the whole thing is just training us for a future in which we are displayed the item of our choice - a tea, piping hot Darjeeling or Lapsang Souchong - as just out of reach until we interact with the machine and are then blessed by it cautiously, tentatively and maybe even lovingly dispensing to us a tasteless brown liquid that is guaranteed to be almost but not quite entirely unlike tea. (Can we claim Hitchhiker's Guide as Prior Art for all this nonsense?)
- nerdo 3y agoWalgreens halted the deployment in February and is now in a contract dispute due to the shoddiness of the screens: https://www.sixteen-nine.net/2023/06/20/court-filings-on-200m-lawsuit-filed-by-cooler-screens-against-walgreens-detail-a-big-freaking-mess/ https://www.sixteen-nine.net/2023/06/20/court-filings-on-200...
- nuancebydefault 3y agoWhen I read the title of this post, Cooler Screens, I expected it were about screens that somehow were -- literally and/or figuratively -- cooler. Alas, it appears to be a not-so-cool Walgreens idea that came into practice. PS Where does the weird name, Walgreens, come from? Maybe the name originated from the same 'great mind' having this 'cool' idea?
- thomastjeffery 3y agoJust like the subject of the article, the title is trying to be clever and interesting, all the while functionally degrading the experience.
- wlonkly 3y agoWalgreen was the last name of the founder. At some point the apostrophe went missing.
- panzagl 3y agoCuriously, an edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica which fell through a rift in the time-space continuum from 1000 years in the future describes the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as: "A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."
- duped 3y agoI had always figured that the point was to reduce food waste since you don't have to keep the shelves in the coolers visibly fully stocked. But they do suck from a technical perspective and while I used to occasionally grab a case of beer or a cold soda from Walgreens I pretty much avoid it for that now, because the prices are still terrible and now the experience is too.
- killjoywashere 3y agoI first saw some sort of cooler screen in a grocery store in Bangkok, I think around 2019. The door was actually transparent, it was just the pixel layer, no reflectors or lights (light coming from the luminance of delicious products lit themselves by traditional in-cabinet lighting). As I recall the imagery was a loop of a pleasant airline attendant-looking lady offering a coke bottle. Not sure I have been to a drug store of any kind in a few years though. Are these different? Truly screens so you can't see what's in the cabinets?
- jagged-chisel 3y agoIndeed, these are full screens mounted between the glass door and the customer’s eyes. The Walgreens near me had them installed recently and they were generally functional - lit, animated, switched to inventory when I approached - but the inventory data was wrong. I wanted ice cream, one brand/flavor was available, but I opened the door to find it totally empty. Had to open it to know that the “available” ice cream was not actually available.
- onemoresoop 3y agoI find these screens disorienting as hell. I'd leave the store empty handed only to be able to escape the screens in close proximity claustrophobia sensation that these make me feel.
- samtho 3y agoI found out about this company when I was job hunting last year. I almost thought it was some sort of joke or pilot for something more innovative than replacing a transparent refrigerator door with a screen. I do not like putting down peoples ideas, but it’s pretty safe to say that this is product is the Juicero of the 2020s. It has a complexity that is equal to its lack of utility.
- psd1 3y agoIt doesn't lack utility. It has large negative utility.
- tasty_freeze 3y agoThe 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.
- chasd00 3y agoi 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.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- SergeAx 3y agoI had to google what the author is talking about. It is rich animated advertising surfaces mounted on top of food retail refrigerator doors. How atrocious, and no uBlock to turn it off.
- ddingus 3y agoI was surprised at how much I dislike these things! When I find them, I pretty much avoid that establishment from then on. One would think the brightly colored labels on the products is advertising enough!
- franga2000 3y agoI genuinely, without any doubt, believed this was alternate-world satire. For a second there, where the dates lined up and COVID was mentioned, I believed it, but quickly went back to thinking the writer is just very good at convincing the reader after the next few paragraphs. The horrow I felt, when the HN comments provided links with pictures... The environmental impact alone should be enough to put several executives in prison! What the fuck were any of them thinking???
- anonymoose33282 3y ago"How do we make the cooler door a more engaging experience?" Imagine getting your raise request denied, meanwhile the guy asking these questions is an executive at your company. I could sadly see this concept coming to fruition in the future as a way for stores to make more passive money by playing ads on them (like gas station pumps do now in the US), but man do I not know a single other good reason to have them.
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoVery strange. The principal purpose of cooler doors is to be insulating and transparent. So I know where my sweet tea or whatever is, can find and buy it without frustration. The money gets collected faster by the business, and I don't quit coming to the store from frustration and annoyance. Do anything whatsoever to interfere with that, you have a demonstrably worse device. You will spend money to lose money, installing stupid doors to produce a drop in sales. I cannot possibly imagine this is a good idea. And I cannot possibly imagine anybody involved in the chain of events that led to this being created, had an iota of sense.