How many robots does it take to run a grocery store? on HackerTube: recommended by 2 Hacker News commenters across 2 separate months, 2021–2026.
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Tom Scott tours Ocado's automated grocery warehouse, where thousands of robots move boxes on a grid called the Hive, and asks whether they are individual robots or a hive mind.
Cited in automation and robotics threads as the example of a warehouse built robot-first.
“I thought this was an interesting insight into what a fully-automated grocery store looks like.”
18 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
I thought this was an interesting insight into what a fully-automated grocery store looks like. And also wild to think about how different things are when you design them for automation from the ground up. ▶ this video
in “Automation is reaching more companies” · View on HN
Tom Scott had a good video a couple of weeks ago about a grocery packing warehouse that has a sophisticated picking network: ▶ this video
in “Intrinsic, a new Alphabet company” · View on HN
Great, now let's (gradually) get rid of all surface parking lots and build hyper-optimized multi-floor parking setups not made for human driving. A sort of Ocado Grocery Warehouse [1] for cars. [1]: ▶ this video As always, yes I know this already exists in Japan.
in “Park by Robot at London Gatwick Airport” · View on HN
> With online shopping and delivery, the warehouse can be a dark, cramped, hot, robot-filled pandemonium in the worst part of town. Tom Scott - How many robots does it take to run a grocery store? ▶ this video (grocery fulfillment centers are different than Amazon) ... It's also coldish. [link]
in “Postal Arbitrage” · View on HN
> or a waiter serving food at a restaurant, Over the last few years, I've seen a few in use here in Berlin: [link] > or someone who restocks shelves at grocery stores For physical retail, or home delivery? People are working on this for traditional stores, but I can't tell which news stories are real and which are hype — after around a decade of Musk promising FSD within a year or so, I know not to simply trust press releases even when they have a video of the thing apparently working. For home delivery, this is mostly kinda solved: ▶ this video > Plus, in the case of service work like being a waiter, I imagine some customers will always be willing to pay for a human face. Sure… if they have the money. But can we make an economy where all the stuff is free, and we're "working" n-hours a day smiling at bad jokes and manners of people we don't like, so we can earn money to spend to convince someone else who doesn't like us to spend m-hours a day smiling at our bad jokes and manners?
in “The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine” · View on HN
Not heavy industry, but here is a video of an automated grocery warehouse: ▶ this video If you stick with the human first design, you miss out on enormous potential efficiency gains.
in “Hyundai to buy 'thousands' of Boston Dynamics robots” · View on HN
For shopping, surely the best robotic option are the various things the huge warehouses use, rather than havingthan a humanoid going around a store meant for humans? Both the things that look like Roombas and all these: ▶ this video No single consumer would buy all that, but the retailers can.
in “Advanced Expressive Humanoid Whole-Body Control” · View on HN
There are robot grocery warehouses in England: ▶ this video (5 minutes, Tom Scott video). Lots of Amazon's stock would be easier, but Amazon also has a greater range of sizes.
in “Amazon workers to strike at multiple US warehouses during busy holiday season” · View on HN
Not quite on-topic, but I have to wonder: why go and develop these long-winded solutions when we can come up with obvious better ones? -- order on your phone (which is nice and easy because you can add to your grocery list with a smart home speaker/smartphone list throughout the day) and then it's automatically packaged (in an automated warehouse: ▶ this video ) and delivered? And for folks who drive to work, have them shipped to their place of work. Places of work make accommodations like have parking for electric cars and cafeterias -- having a place for delivery storage strikes me as an obvious perk that has tremendous benefits both for employers, employees, and the environment.
in “What is really going on at Amazon Fresh?” · View on HN
Or maybe just do both. I do most of my groceries through Ocado, and their warehouse operations are almost fully automated[0], but then on the delivery front I can only assume they staff much more generously than amazon, because their delivery drivers are always much more relaxed than Amazon drivers, they're quite happy to have a chat while unpacking, and often call saying they're running early and ask whether it's ok to arrive before the delivery window. 0. ▶ this video
in “Amazon Is Running Out of Warehouse Workers. Cue the Robots” · View on HN
These days I try to avoid physical shops as much as possible. Here in the UK, we have a "supermarket" called Ocado. If you haven't heard of them, please look them up on Youtube[0]. They don't have any physical shops I know of, but have recently started stocking M&S products. They are known in the UK to usually be more expensive, but good quality. It might be the Whole Foods of the UK. They run warehouses with a grid of rails and seem to be on a mission to automate as much of the logistics and delivery of products as possible. The website allows me to set up a regular weekly order, I can edit it up until the evening of the day before to add any last minute items. I think I pay £10 a month for unlimited deliveries over £40. Having someone bring a weekly food shop to your door for £2.50 is a great deal. Not only is this a super easy to get food shopping done each week, I can do it from the comfort of my desk (great for when Retros get a little boring!). It also stops me impulse buying things. I know I already have a December 23rd order coming full of Christmas food and I get to avoid the packed Christmas food shoppers and the depressing Christmas decorations and music in store (I'm a scrooge). I don't want a better shopping experience, I want the best food, at the cheapest prices, delivered to me in a reliable way. I don't want to think about buying food any longer than I have to each week. [0] ▶ this video
in “Why everything looks the same” · View on HN
>rethinking the whole process instead yields a much bigger boost. Reminds me of a Tom Scott video where he checks out the Ocado warehouse in the UK: ▶ this video It's crazy; they've rethought the entire system to have it navigable by machine.
in “Boston Dynamics’ Stretch robot can move 800 heavy boxes per hour” · View on HN
There's a great example of a facility built from the ground up with a robot-first approach in Ocado, the grocery packing/delivery company, it looks very different to warehouses that have humans in mind: ▶ this video It let them do a few novel things I think, most obvious is the dense packing grid, no need for humans to get around the area so they really pack in the functional units. Next is the precision they can pull off without having to worry about wiggle-room or interruptions from people, the robots move very close to eachother which would be a big no-no if you had to worry about people.
in “Boston Dynamics’ Stretch robot can move 800 heavy boxes per hour” · View on HN
> I don't think Ocado has a dense enough network of local warehouses. yes, AFAIK, Ocado relies on a few large highly automated warehouses. (1) The main issue seems to be that the level of automation is so high that a fire is not noticed soon enough. This has happened twice. (2) 1) ▶ this video 2) [link] [link]
in “What’s the Point of 15-Minute Grocery Delivery?” · View on HN
I think your vision makes sense. It might not be optimal currently but as A.I., automation, and other technologies advance (Fusion fingers-crossed) I can see it becoming plausible and even desirable over the "pure-ish" capitalist economy we currently have. Just to showcase some of the automation prototypes that makes me a hopeful believer: ▶ this video [link] [link] 3-d printed homes too
in “Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's (1991)” · View on HN
▶ this video I feel like a lot of factories are going to go in this direction. Lots of complex automation but ultimately very simple mechanisms with a strong framework to make sure nothing goes wrong.
in “Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”” · View on HN
I've been wrong many times before but still have trouble believing this would be more efficient than just having two separate buildings. Even in places where land is very expensive. How many dark stores would you have to run in a city like Boston to get the same efficiency you could get from a signle warehouse with a similar system to this?: ▶ this video And if you insist on doing that multi-use concept - it still seems like a robot on wheels and with much different than human arms would be more efficient.
in “Tesla Announces a Humanoid Robot “Tesla Bot”” · View on HN
Ha - the production setup includes Xbox Kinect components - right when the employee says "3d cameras" at 2:26 ▶ this video
in “How many robots does it take to run a grocery store? [video]” · View on HN