Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with “Just Walk Out” technology, first reported by The Information Tuesday. The company’s senior vice president of grocery stores says they’re moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with.
“Just walk out” was a cool idea, but I’m not sure the way they tried to implement it would have ever been successful even if they had perfected the technology. The fact that they tried to disguise it as a fully automated system when they had a team of thousands of people overseas analyzing the footage is disturbing. I like the idea of just having the scanner in the basket much better. It’s still more convenient/efficient than a checkout line or a kiosk and it helps you keep track of your total balance.
I’ve never actually been to one of these stores. They seem pretty scarce.
My university just finished replacing one of the on campus convenience stores with a “just walk out” thing. The experience just felt kinda weird overall.