
Standard Cognition Raises $40M Series A to Deliver Autonomous Checkout - TheEzEzz
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/15/standard-cognition/
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physcab
The “re-humanizing retail” line left a bad taste in my mouth. When I think of
lots of cameras in a store designed to get you in and out as quickly as
possible without having to talk to a cashier or a stocker, it feels de-
humanizing and sterile. It is also one of the ways I interact with people at
different income levels. That’s why people go to farmers markets and do CSA
boxes - they want to feel connection to their food providers and community.

I don’t doubt this technology is the future or will be a big market, but let’s
not kid ourselves that this will generate more human connection.

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TheEzEzz
(Jordan from Standard here)

This is a fair initial take, and we should clarify why we think we're
improving the social experience. A big part of why Lyft or Uber feels
different than taking a cab is that there's no transactional portion of your
interaction with the driver. Get into the car, chat a bit, say goodbye, and be
on your way. By removing transactional mechanics you can focus on the human
element. If you look at the Amazon Go stores, or the Standard Store, you see a
similar effect. You walk in, and rather than immediately seeing bulky machines
manned by people with the sole intent of transacting, instead you see people
walking around chatting and helping you find what you need. They're not there
to take your money, they're there to help you, exclusively. That changes the
nature of the interaction, and is the experience we're trying to deliver
across retail.

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physcab
I mean, that is a good pitch in theory, that just doesn't resonate with my
experience as a consumer in retail.

Go to any store that has self-checkout currently. Usually there is one
attendee servicing 4 machines. No one comes up to you to chat, they only come
over when theres a problem. When you go to a manned-checkout, they usually ask
how you are doing, if you found everything ok, if you want to join a loyalty
program...etc. Some of the checkout people I know very well over the years in
my community. One even gave my infant daughter free socks because she has
grandchildren.

You wont get that in this future. Those checkers will be gone. You'll just
have employees minding their own business tending to their work, like you will
with yours.

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mikhuang
I think the idea is that instead of being tied to a cash register, former
checkout people would be able to get to know their community better by being
free to go anywhere in the store. The Apple Store experience comes to mind for
me.

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learc83
I did something slightly similar to this for class project years ago. I think
my project was called "Object Removal Detection in a Retail Environment".

I wasn't trying to detect which item was removed, just that _an_ item was
removed, so it was a good bit simpler. I was using Matlab to analyze with old
school computer vision algorithms to analyze the video (this was before deep
learning was common).

It mostly worked--it could highlight when an item was removed from a shelf,
but it wasn't useful enough for much other than maybe helping security to
manually review tapes for evidence of shoplifting.

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dxssg
This is very surprising given the limitations of the technology. How they can
handle occlusions from the ceiling cameras? How the can know for sure if a
person is grabbing a product from the back of the shelf rather than a product
that's in front? Unless they're using some high-frequency cameras to "X-Ray"
the whole store, I'd say this approach is doomed to failure. Even Amazon Go,
after many years of R&D, uses a combination of sensors to ensure that they
charge correctly and that they have an accurate inventory of the whole store.

~~~
rajacombinator
Why is it so surprising? Presumably they can setup as many cameras as needed.
I don’t see it being so much of an improvement over the current self checkout
systems to warrant the billions of investment being thrown at it currently
though.

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oliverx0
(disclosure: I work for a competitor)

These are actually very valid points and why most solutions tend to go for a
sensor fusion approach that leverages the best of computer vision along with
other sensor modalities. Using only ceiling cameras will not get you to the
kind of accuracy that most retailers require to confidently rely on the
technology.

Even if you placed more cameras (not only ceiling cameras, but also in the
shelves and other areas of the store pointing at different angles), leaving
aside the cost (which adds up), people will always be able to occlude the
items from the cameras (even unintentionally). To put it in numbers (as an
example): computer vision can get you 80% of the way in terms of accuracy /
detecting items grabbed, for the rest you need other sensors.

The main benefit over other self checkout systems is the time customers wait
in line. If you have been to Amazon Go, the experience of walking out without
waiting is quite magical.

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Animats
Occlusion is a big vision problem here. The customer facing problem is being
stuck at checkout with a "Wait for Attendant" message on screen.

There's "LaneHawk", which has a camera mounted near the floor looking at the
bottom level of shopping carts.[1] This is to catch bags of dog food, cases of
beer, and similar big items the cashier might miss. Came out around 2010.
Saves about $10 per lane per day. That's probably the most successful system
in this area right now.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpHqWSYTF2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpHqWSYTF2s)

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baybal2
To the few comments above: stores with automatic self-checkouts were a thing
in Japan for a decade, but the trend has reversed. Properly trained cashiers
were faster than machines, nor had issues with "please wait for attendant
every second checkout."

The biggest problem for them were that they after all, all required some
amount of human intervention for work. Because of that, the store had to buy
both a self-checkout machines, then hire a guy to click buttons on the
machine, then a security guy who looks if nobody tries to do any tricks and
rough up ones who do.

I think the better way is how it is done in China: you have gigantic (shipping
container sized) wending machines placed all around residential blocks and
such. Works well for packaged products, but not for fresh produce. When it
needs service, a truck comes in, picks it up whole, and a new, fully restocked
one is placed in its place in a few hours by the same truck with a crane.

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koolba
If the software screws up and the item count is incorrect in the favor of the
customer (ie, charged for 3 rather than 4+ widgets), who eats the cost?

Have you hired sleight of hand artists to field test the machines? I’d be very
impressed if a determined actor could not fool a set of overhead cameras.

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vallesmarineris
Welp, grocery shopping in real life is about to get even worse. Instacart to
the rescue.

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ryanmccullagh
I see Instacart people in the store all the time. However, I wouldn't use
them. I like to pick my own vegetables, and meat. It's definitely not all the
same (meat, vegetables, fruits), and having someone just throw whatever they
can grab into a cart in the fastest way possible isn't something I'm
interested in.

~~~
vallesmarineris
Is that what it looks like in the store? That's not how it feels at home.
Shoppers frequently label items as 'of low quality' to alert me that the bell
pepper selection or whatever isn't great.

Also, despite my 30+ years on this Earth, I vastly more trust a 'professional'
shopper to pick out good veggies than I do myself. I respect that you're
different, but I can say with 100% certainty that the produce picked out by my
instacart shoppers is excellent and better than I could do. Never a single
complaint there, at least from me.

Do they really rush? From my side, they seem to take their sweet time. They
text frequently, asking questions, suggesting replacements not shown in the
app, etc. The whole process feels slow and relaxed.

I don't eat meat so I don't know about that. But I would assume the same as
veggies. Instacart does a top-top job picking quality ingredients for me.
Definitely better than I would know how to do myself.

Who is more likely to know the freshest spinach? Not me, that's for sure. An
instacart shopper who is there all day? Much more likely to get good results.

I do have issues with instacart, but none of the concerns you've mentioned
have in any way harmed me. My main issue is that the delivery times seem to be
not communicated to the driver. So it will tell you 10am - 11am, but the
driver will show up at 9:50 and not know that they are early. Sometimes also,
the selection available on the website will be mislabelled in category
(tomatoes in bath care, or something).

Otherwise it has been really incredible for me, overall.

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maxerickson
If you can't pick good produce yourself, why do you put any stock in your
evaluation of the produce they pick for you?

Seems those things would be based on the same skill.

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simonebrunozzi
Wild guess: if they do well, they're going to be either acquired by Amazon
(Go), or crushed by them.

~~~
dv_dt
They could be acquired by Walmart, or Target, or any number of other
retailers.

~~~
jonathanpeterwu
If they continue to raise and add Amazon competitors as customers, they'll be
in a similar position as Instacart. Selling to anyone whose in competition w/
Amazon

