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The tech here was good but the product implementation was terrible. These scanners just showed up randomly in places and just sat there unused. I literally bot
by cmiles8 9mo ago
The tech here was good but the product implementation was terrible. These scanners just showed up randomly in places and just sat there unused.
I literally both saw them all over and never actually saw anyone use it.
No clear onboarding pathway, no explanation as to what it did or why use it, no clarity on what happens to the data. Just a box sitting there.
It was as if all the focus was on the tech and nobody bothered to think about how to actually deploy a product to market.
- Izikiel43 9mo agoI used them in whole foods all the time
- Eric_WVGG 9mo agosincere, non-trolling question: Why? You clearly saw some value in the convenience. Smartphone and smartwatch NFC offers that convenience everywhere. Even setting up palm authentication feels like unnecessary work.
- atkailash 9mo agoI used it at Whole Foods cause it did my prime code and charged me at the same time without digging my phone out of my pocket but also my Whole Foods has bad reception so it’s annoying to use
- Eric_WVGG 9mo agoYou don't need reception of any kind to do an NFC payment, as long as the terminal has network access (even through ethernet). the Prime code thing is a good point tho
- stevewodil 9mo agoPrime discounts were automatically applied if you use the credit card on your Amazon account I thought
- closeparen 9mo agoThe scanners were there before this.
- dangus 9mo agoAutomatic loyalty cards are already supported in Apple Pay and I assume Google Pay as well.
- llsf 9mo agoIn theory, but not in practice. The devil is in the details. Yes, Apple wallet and Google wallet allows to store loyalty cards. And those cards can be summoned using respectively VAS and SmartTap. But... while all payment terminals are compatible to VAS and SmartTap, very few have the firmware and a POS that can make sense of it. So, in practice, beside Walgreens and maybe CSV, it is not much adopted.
- smoghat 9mo agoI used Amazon One at my workplace all the time, but I only used it at the self-checkout line since I'd rarely get more than a few items, and the lines are shorter at this crowded neighborhood WF. There, I would scan all my items and use my palm to both log in to Prime and pay. Given that I would be scanning my own items, I much preferred it to phone or watch, as I didn't have to fish them out after scanning. I am surprised nobody has mentioned the real joy of checkout at Whole Foods, which is that there is no annoying, incessant voice asking every self-checkout shopper, "Have you scanned your rewards card yet?" and "Please complete the transaction on the pin pad." It must be sheer torture working all day with those going off constantly.
- vostrocity 9mo agoI like to go running with nothing on me besides a house key, and it's useful to be able to stop by Whole Foods after the run and buy a snack without a phone, watch, or wallet.
- bombcar 9mo agoA powered door lock and keypad and you won't even need the house key!
- fragmede 9mo agoA richer zip code and safer streets and you won't need either!
- hubber 9mo ago[flagged]
- xerox13ster 9mo agoMayberry’s Mayberry ‘til it ain’t no more. Don’t matter how far out in the sticks you are. Yer askin for trouble. Just ask the Clutter family. Oop, you can’t.
- octoberfranklin 9mo agoWear an NFC ring on your finger. Unlike your palmprint, you can get a new ring with a new private key if yours is compromised.
- llsf 9mo agoIt all boils down to the tradeoff between convenience and security. I don't think it is particularly easy to replicate a living hand with all the blood vessels. And it is not particularly easy to get a NFC ring with a secure element compatible with payment terminals. I thought that the engineering team at Amazon did a great job with Amazon One. I wish someone could pick up the tech and carry on.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- Izikiel43 9mo agoConvenience? Set up once with the CC with rewards for groceries, hover hand 2 seconds, done. Apple Pay in the phone or watch are super convenient as well, but they take just a tad bit more of time between selecting the menus in the touch screen for pay options, and then selecting the matching CC. I save like 30s? Possibly. Is this tech overkill? Most likely.
- efficax 9mo agoAfter they showed up a year or two ago, I never saw a single person use them in the checkout line. Bad vibes, giving my biometrics to Amazon, and I think that's how most people felt
- toephu2 9mo agoWhat problem was it solving though? NFC contactless payments is already pretty fast and convenient. I feel like Amazon One Palm was invented to solve for a problem we didn't really have. Thus the failure.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- michaelt 9mo agoThere are certain enterprise applications that particularly like biometrics. Gym entry system where you can't share your entry fob with a buddy Corporate access control system, no need for a guard to deal with people who've forgotten their cards. Time clock where it's impossible for workers to clock other people in/out.
- bhhaskin 9mo agoSure, but that isn't what it was being used for, and all of those places already have access control systems.
- websap 9mo agoMy gym in Seattle used this, and it was great. I often forgot bringing my fob, and not needing to explain to the frontdesk person was fantastic.
- xerox13ster 9mo agoAlso in Seattle and at my gym I scan a barcode off my phone and keep my personal biometric data secure. It’s great. Fantastically, no need to explain anything to a front desk person, either. I’m team “solution in search of a problem”
- llsf 9mo agoThe fact that you do not have to pull a card or even your phone could make the transaction faster. And it would link to my Prime account so I could get my discounts/points. All with just me showing my palm. Using your palm print (and actually blood vessels network) could be also more secure than tapping a card (NFC contactless). I enjoyed using the technology. I did test other biometric payments like with face at the Intuit Dome in LA. But it felt more creepy and far less secure... as I was walking by some gates would open and some random person could enter as me... and possibly charge my linked payment. Using the hand with Amazon Go felt safer. Wondering if Amazon would be willing to sell the technology, as I could see being deployed in lots of retail stores. The fact that it was made by Amazon, likely prevented to sell the technology to other retailers. Someone like Verifone, Ingenico or even a POS like Micros should go after the technology...
- burnte 9mo agoI saw them show up without explanation, but I don't think that's the reason they were unused. If you look at it, it says what it is and to just hold your hand over it to use it, so it's very easy to learn to use and enroll. I believe the problem was that people simply don't want Amazon to own copies of our finger/hand prints. I intentionally avoided the scanners because of that reason. This was always doomed to fail, this was almost as dumb an idea as the Facebook Portal. Yeah, the tech is there, and works great, but just like no one wanted Facebook to have a 24/7 camera in their house, I don't think people want to give Amazon their biometric data. FB Portal was rolled out right after all the media reporting about Cambridge Analytica and how utterly untrustworthy Facebook really was at it's code. A friend of mine was PM on it and I felt terrible for him because as excited as he was, I knew it was always going to fail. "Do you have chickens in a coop? Hire Chicken Eating Foxes to watch them for you! They won't eat your chickens!" Note: Chickens may be eaten at anytime and will probably be eaten instantly.
- matthewdgreen 9mo agoI don't want Amazon to own my palm print, but I also love using weird payment technology. So I would have probably been dumb enough to sign up at Whole Foods if I'd noticed that was an option.
- baby_souffle 9mo ago> I believe the problem was that people simply don't want Amazon to own copies of our finger/hand prints. I intentionally avoided the scanners because of that reason. Yep. And for this privacy risk, I can't even use my palm anywhere but whole foods.
- justonceokay 9mo agoAs a business owner you had to pay a monthly subscription to even have it on your counter! A joke product for unserious people