I'd much prefer having a machine on my property as a backup if I'm not home!
Your inconvenience of forgetting your wallet seems minor by comparison when you can just go upstairs, imagine forgetting it after driving and waiting in line... that really is the only alternative isn't it besides the old school "dumb" parcel boxes?
Your inconvenience of not knowing it was there and getting charged was the fault of your landlord, who rightfully paid the fee for you. It wasn't the fault of the box design per-se - but obviously something to be aware of.*
Your inconvenience of spam filtering is probably less likely with an amazon based email system.
I'm happy to see these becoming a widespread thing and being pushed to residential property owners. It even seems superior to the typical package boxes in most new apartment buildings or suburbs as it comes with email/mobile notifications (typical package tracking is far too often less than accurate)!
The only thing better than a machine here is a human concierge who signs for them and calls you if you don't pick it up with your mail. They're paid to be nice to you and are rarely busy.
* Maybe Amazon should make sure to tell new owners to thoroughly notify every tenant before using it - with signs saying it will be installed in x weeks and letters left on your door.
So in the past couple of months, I have RMA'd two items, returned one due to bad fulfillment, returned one more because I didn't like what I bought (and that got lost). Of all the items I ordered, one got lost or stolen, two more I had to pick up at the local PO which cost me a total of ~20USD in taxi fares (and several hours wasted waiting in line), one I had to pick up in the central depot which cost me 50USD in taxi fares just for that day (and again, several hours wasted).
Only one of those packages had free delivery because they all have to hop between the US, China, Denmark, Germany and who knows where else. (The only one I got free delivery on was a CODE keyboard, which costs $250 in Europe, vs. $130 in USA). So I'm actually paying for this ostensibly terrible service.
So I'm looking at the hub and I just think "Wow, that solves a lot of problems outside the US".
And it's US only.
Of course it is.
There are already competitors operating here in Canada doing this stuff fortunately. I believe Amazon acquired one of them which turned into this [nm, see edit]. That should hopefully pressure Amazon to expand and this will offer tons of free advertising for those smaller companies competing.
Edit: turns out it was Buffer Box and they were acquired by Google and (of course) shut down https://www.wikiwand.com/en/BufferBox
InPost is another one with boxes all over Europe. They recently shut down in my city though :/ (Toronto). But otherwise it looks pretty like they have extensive deployment: https://inpost24.com/
Germany has DHL Packstation: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Packstation
Also two startups: https://wefunder.com/swapbox and http://www.ucella.com/
Also, not in a ton of locations.
The post office will give you a forwarding address (for regular mail) that will end up in the locker of your choosing, but you then have to pay €x/package, and the lockers are usually at post offices, so it's not really worth it.
If they could somehow have the postal service and couriers able to post things to InPost boxes, it'd be far more useful - but I suspect there's some really complicated contractual stuff that prevents that.
Your parcel get just delivered to your local NewsAgent, which in the UK generally has extensive opening times. Supported directly by Amazon and a bunch of retailer, but delivery companies use the same system (DPD, EPS).
For those who may not know, Canada's national postal service is the largest parcel carrier in Canada.
SMSes get sent to you as notification, and you have 3-4 days to pick it up. After that (and a second notification), it gets sent to your local post office and a delivery note is sent to your house.
No charges yet for the service, though they have been toying with the idea ever since it launched a few years ago. No charges for packages not getting delivered either.
[0] http://www.mcw.gov.cy/mcw/dps/dps.nsf/page25_en/page25_en?Op...
I think that in densely built European cities robo delivery is a much more promising technology. The first trials are already ongoing here [0]. Putting in the hubs may not make sense if the target audience doesn't want delivery vans in a few years time.
There is a low-tech solution for this already..you have normal package lockers near the mailroom which have keys. Your package is put in a locker, and the corresponding key is put into your mailbox.
Seems way easier and the only way this is better is if the touchscreen system works for signature required packages, allowing them to be dropped off without you
There are plenty of other properties that could utilize this too such as multi-tenant office buildings and plenty of other non-apartment building use cases.
It also productizes these boxes so they can buy one of these instead of setting of a mail center and doing the subsequent maintenance (ie: cutting keys, replacing lost ones, etc). And it notifies the people by email/mobile which makes it a nice value add-on for property owners to sell with the property.
How would that work with multiple delivery services? A FedEx or UPS worker, for instance, cannot legally put a package locker key into a USPS mailbox (and usually, in apartment mailbox banks, cannot even physically do so even if they are willing to ignore the law).
Alternatively: put in boxes not owned by the usps, and use combination locks. The "special delivery instructions" box on every order form on earth already supports this.
The main problems with outdoor lock boxes are moisture and heat. The main problem with indoor ones is that you need a mail room, and they tend to be shared.
I don't see how this new product helps in most circumstances. I guess it could be useful in high crime urban settings, but mail lock boxes are already common there.
OnTrac has taken over most Amazon deliveries at this apartment. They don't know the door code to get in (ups/FedEx/usps do). So, they leave packages by the exterior door. Usually the wrong one.
Mailman puts the package in the mailbox which has a keypad and low-tech 1980's calculator style 1 line display.
He put package in locker. It generates and displays a pin-code, he write it down on a slip of paper with the locker number and puts it in your mailbox.
Works very well.
(I think he has to swipe a card to allow him to lock the thing in the first place. To stop random people using it).
The low-tech thing has its downsides: the other day the delivery guy wrote down the wrong code so I had to wait for the building manager to open it.
That said, I agree that it works very well. And I think it's a somewhat recent innovation. Apart from my current apartment none of the places I've lived here (10+ years) had lockers.
(I have been using the AusPost ones and I'm having more luck than I used to).
Seriously - if AusPost don't want to accept a delivery they won't even let you know, it's just returned to sender.
Again, I think they are nice enough most of the time, but the 'edge' cases make them a no-go for me.
> Oh wait, then you forgot your phone and had to go all the way back up to get it to get the unlock codes off of your email. Then you had to be certain that your email would not send the code email into spam, so that sucked.
Those are just one time things. You will forget first or second time but third time your brain will ring a bell "get your phone". Adding that email into trusted contacts is also a one time thing.
My building also has this setup but from different company. First three days are free. There is a website to manager locker settings. You can specify your away days then your packages will be dropped at leasing office.
This idea was also pitched at SharkTank and got funding.
Yeah, what a weird argument. Oh no, I have to grab my phone and can't just saunter downstairs in my unmentionables and nothing else.
Delivery lockers are a minor inconvenience, but it certainly was not a positive change... paper cuts add up.
I have no idea what a trusted contact is in email.
Also, our rentors never told us about this nonsense, they just appeared. So, trying to think up, de-novo, that these would have some website attached to them was too far-fetched for me, let alone many of my former neighbors.
You know SharkTank is highly staged and this is an Amazon thingy now, right?: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilycanal/2016/10/21/about-72-...
I can hardly remember the last time I went somewhere without my phone.
But if my mailbox requires me to have my phone, I'd bring it along. I don't see the problem.
Both myself and everyone I know have their phones on them 24/7, and next to their bed when they sleep.
How come you don't forget the keys then? This phone thing is such a non-issue. You could even memorize the code when you get the mail and won't need the phone at all after that.
Like it takes two seconds in the app or you can block all notifications from that app by long pressing the notification.
Really not that hard to get rid of the spam.
Since this is a multi-access digital mailbox this can handle more complex workflows a typical mailbox cannot. For example the code can be changed remotely so your access can be revoked (for cancelled orders maybe) or the delivery person re-open the box to pick up a package you dropped off in there for return.
This also opens up potential for further innovations here like RFID or bar-code scanners inside the hubs to mitigate wrong deliveries.
> Yeah, 150$ for some random thing my sister sent me unannounced was not a lot of fun.
That's unfortunate and maybe they ought to allow you to monitor and avoid charges using your app. However, whenever you have a shared and limited resources, charging for overages is not only inevitable but necessary. Otherwise someone who has a holiday home in London can order packages all year around and block the hub until his next visit.
Where Amazon seems to be going with this is improving the state of last mile mail logistics. The logistics are also sensible. Typically it will take a van at least an hour to cover a dozen drops at 5 minutes per drop. This is a real cost -- a cost that the consumer eventually bears. With a sharper focus on the hub model, a delivery van now needs to make a single drop for dozens of packages. These cost savings can be passed on to the consumer.
My issue was that many of the other companies were doing the 'normal' thing even through the time I was at the place that had the robo-lockers. Like, why make me take the extra steps (literally) to endure yet another middle-man that is just trying to gank me when I screw up? It made no sense and I didn't sign up for it at all, nor did they tell me about any apps or web-sites, just some random email stuff that got sorted into spam a lot.
Also, I don't really think ol' Jeff is gonna pass those savings on to us. Why would he? Dude is now crazy rich, and he did not get that way by passing savings on to customers. He got that way by providing a competing service for maybe 1 penny less than the other guy even though he could have done it for a dollar less. And yes, that is a heck of a debate to get mucked into, but suffice to say, Jeff is not trying to do us favors, he's trying to stay filthy rich.
What you mean is that this isn't opt-in? All your packets potentially go there without you explicitly asking for it?
Wow, the very definition of 1st world problems right there :D
Who forgets their phone these days? And even then, you can memorize the 4 digit code.
We have these things and they work great.
And yeah, I forget my phone all the time. To me, the phone is something I use, not something that I need or that others need me to have. On the weekends, I maybe check it twice if I'm not hiking or something, it just sits there charging otherwise.
Just get the Amazon implant to authentify yourself (coming soon)... or just scream something next to the hub and the echo located in your bedroom will give you access using your voice's unique signature.
Why is nobody talking about the most important point? THIS is the most important point. $5 a day is a LOT of money and I am outraged. Is everyone here financially independent or something? I have agonized over buying a used desktop/laptop computer for months and that purchase is well under $200.
None of the rest of the story matters. What matters at the end of the day is the money. Are you guys paying attention to where your money is going?
If I was in charge, changing the terms of rental like this would be a criminal offense and the management would be in prison for years.
Still, those were terrible ideas. FedEx, USPS, and UPS all just dropped the boxes off on our door. The others made us use those machines. It wasn't too bad to go down and get the packages. Oh wait, then you forgot your phone and had to go all the way back up to get it to get the unlock codes off of your email. Then you had to be certain that your email would not send the code email into spam, so that sucked.
But if you were out of town or on vacation or just stressed from work or had a spam email mis-identification then it was a spawn worse than Satan. The system started to charge you, like 5$/day or something, for non-picked-up packages after like day 3. Guess who got a nasty surcharge after spending a month away for work and no email to tell me that things would get surcharged? Yeah, 150$ for some random thing my sister sent me unannounced was not a lot of fun.
And no, the apt complex signed onto this AFTER we moved in and with no notice on the lease or an update to us. I did get the complex to pay that crazy fee after storming in one morning and yelling a lot. Idiots.
As long as there is no charge for packages that don't get picked up and no 'max time' it can sit in a robo-bin, these things work great. If there is any charge at all, in any way whatsoever, avoid them like the plague, they are horrible.