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.
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.
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...
solutions that often look brilliant on paper but are poorly executed or inadequately supported in practice (Amazon GO, Fire Phone, Dash Buttons, Astro, Amazon Wallet, etc, etc)
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.
Yep. And for this privacy risk, I can't even use my palm anywhere but whole foods.
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.
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Not every amazon site is cloud-scale. Niche product like this might be running bare metal under someone's desk
The site came back around eu-west-1 which, while correlation isn't causation, it does look meaningfully in causation's direction and wiggle an eyebrow suggestively.
So, in practice, I am not sure if that is truly a non-starter for "normies" and even some "techies". I already gave up on my face biometrics living in US.
My fingerprints and palmprints have gone through so many biometric studies through multiple colleges and I know they’ve done experiments with copying and making false biometrics from some of their study samples.
What’s not to love?
For security reasons, it makes sense that if you use your phone number rather than the QR code, of course you don't have the option to utilize the linked card.
Meant to register the palm thing but just never got around to it, wasn't even really sure how/where? That was the main blocker for me -- was never prompted to do it as part of checkout, and didn't want to waste time going over to customer service to ask how.
Steps I remember:
1. Put down everything so you have 2 free hands.
2. Mention that it will take a minute to the cashier.
3. Unlock your phone.
4. Find the Amazon app (this part is odd, you’re at Whole Foods).
5. Dig around in the UI for the store code. They move it around.
6. Present your phone to the cashier to scan.Now I need to tap through a stupid app and scan a code.
We always stopped at whole foods on the way home from the gym, and I didn't always have my phone with me or readily accessible. This will definitely cause me to cut back on this quick stop in / impulse purchases.
The palm thing was never prompted as part of checkout, it's true. I just did it while I was being checked out once years ago since it seemed so cool and it worked flawlessly since then. Honestly, I found the UX of it really all well done. Even if it didn't make it in the long term, I hope the team knows there were a few happy users out here!
EDIT: I just installed the Whole Foods app and it opens directly to the QR code. That's nice. It also selects the appropriate payment method. There doesn't seem to be a watch equivalent so I'll have to pull my phone out, but this definitely reduces the terrible blow of losing the palm scan. I hope it works well without good Internet access!
Haven't the (big) supermarkets in the US adopted the whole "scan and go" thing that lots of countries in Europe have had for a long time? (maybe more than a decade at this point I think)
When I go to the supermarket, right after the entrance, I pick up a scanner, then as I pick stuff, I scan them and pack them. Then when I'm done, you scan a code, give back the scanner, take your stuff and leave. Kind of assumed this was done in the US first and then spread here, but maybe it started here? Not sure.
Home Depot has also allowed this for lower-value items for several years.
But most retail tech in the US is suuuuper backwards. They were still signing credit card receipts until very recently. The way you pay for petrol/gas is bonkers.
We just got tap to pay a couple of years ago. People still pass bits of paper with signatures on them to pay each other for stuff.
There's Amazon's "just walk out" stuff, which they just killed.
Amazon, 2023: please return to your Primehouse for your nightly Primemeal, valued Primecitizen
- krang t. nelson
At this point I presume they collect such biometrics whether I like it or not; they have cameras everywhere.
Curious if they're keeping it at Whole Foods or discontinuing the hardware altogether? Can't say I've ever once seen someone actually use it to pay there.
I don’t see the point though. It is a payment solution in search of a problem. It is a nice bonus first party payment solution at Whole Foods though.
So when you wave your hand, you get your Prime discounts, you pay and you get your points. Just by waving your hand. No need to reach for a phone, an app, a card, scan a QR code, etc.
The tech had some advantages. I used it every time at WF. I liked it.
The steps without using Amazon One were
* open the amazon app
* open the checkout thing
* click the QR code button
* click the amazon QR code
* Scan it
* Open Apple Wallet
* Pay
I hope that they will at least add the amazon QR code to apple wallet to make payment faster in store. That or something to make payment (with Amazon Prime link) as fast as with Amazon One even while not continuing Amazon One itself.
I wonder if they could use a NFC tag or something to quickly open the amazon app on your phone to pay or something?
As opposed to just wave your hand, to get your discounts, pay and get your points.
Why do you have all these steps to pay at a supermarket?
When I am here in the UK, I wave my phone over the card reader, it goes "Pling!" and that's my stuff paid for.
Of course, it's different elsewhere.
When I am over in Austria, I wave my phone over the card reader, it goes "Pling!" and that's my stuff paid for, but this time in Euros, at the going exchange rate.
A similar process is the case in the UK as well at Amazon Fresh stores, last I checked.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
If this came around on 2010, it would have been a hit. Maybe even 2015. Now, it's simply redundant, or something more nefarious (but I can't imagine how).
The Amazon stores were the ultimate physical expression of this ideal. Walk into a store, pick up what you want, wave your hand vaguely at a scanner, leave. If they could have reliably gotten your ID without your involvement at all, they would've done that instead, but the hand scanner was the closest they could come.
There's nothing malicious about it. They just want you to be able to consume as easily as possible with as little friction or opportunities for second thoughts as possible.
It was convenient in Whole Foods. Prime discount and payment together. Remembering to keep the card on file updated was annoying, though.
And at CVS, I can use Google wallet to tap to use my loyalty card and pay. Amazon didn't have to invent a new thing.
I wish Amazon could sell the tech to someone more neutral and have it deployed more broadly.
But have no idea why anyone else would adopt this.
This is not the worlds first biometric payments failure, as that belongs to PayByTouch, nor will it be the last. Having been deeply involved in the technology systems around the worlds first attempt at PayByTouch I do wonder why the "easy" is not embraced by more? I think I know however as it is likely religious in nature and the beliefs around such things. I can vividly recall being told to hide my employee badge while walking through the crowd of protesters holding signage about "Mark of the beast" and more in my attempts to enter the PayByTouch headquarters which used to reside at 1 Market in San Fran CA many years ago.
Wash, rinse, repeat : Everything old is new again. Just give it time as biometric payments will come around once again for absolute, third times a charm?
Do I trust the entity that identify me using biometrics ?
Do I trust it with my biometric data ?
If I link a payment method, do I trust it with access to my payment details ?
With Amazon Go at WF, I was fine to let Amazon know and store my hand biometrics, and I was fine enough with Amazon know what I purchase at WF, as long as I had something back (loyalty program).
Scaling this though would negatively impact the trust. Maybe I do not want Amazon to know "everything" I purchase everywhere (even though Visa/MC/Amex already know it...)
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Lol
* The Bible book of "Revelations" is an accurate prediction of things that will happen exactly as described.
* Revelations predicts that in "the end times", it will become impossible to buy or sell anything without "the mark of the beast" on their forehead or right hand.
* The "mark of the beast" would be administered by the Antichrist.
From Revelations 13:16-17:
"And the second beast required all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark—the name of the beast or the number of its name."
I grew up in an extremely religious part of the US with a large evangelical population, and I know firsthand that a lot of people believe that all of the above is literally, precisely true. It's exactly what I was taught in Sunday School as a kid. I do not believe this; please don't feel the need to tell me why these ideas are not true because I already agree with you. However, a lot of my family and old neighbors would 100% agree with all of the above statements.
And yet, they seemed to have no problem with buying stuff from Amazon with a palm print, or using Sam Altman's creepy Orb eye scanner thing. I'm genuinely surprised at how little fuss there was about them.
"Keep working! The next life - that's when it gets good!"