How Wing's Drone Service Will Deliver Your Coffee, Meds and Groceries

Speaker 1: We're here in the parking lot for Wing, which is a drone delivery service owned by Google's parent company, alphabet. They're demoing something called the Auto Loader, which is designed to make drone delivery a lot less of a hassle. Speaker 1: Queen's mission is to deliver small packages using these autonomous electric drones. The company started offering this service in Australia, Finland, and the US in 2019. You could order, say, medicine, food, or drinks through an app, and then these drones [00:00:30] would deliver those items directly to you from a store or restaurant. Normally, this would mean a retailer restaurant employee would wait for the drone that's picking up your order. But with this new auto loader, which could be placed in a store parking lot, a worker can just put your order inside a package, hook that onto the auto loader, and the drone will come and grab it whenever it arrives. No one has to wait for pickup. The way the system works is there's a tether that falls from the drone as it approaches the auto loader. Then it hooks onto the package, lifts it up, and the drone takes off and comes to you Speaker 2: With, with the auto [00:01:00] loader, we're introducing a way for a worker to place the package on the auto loader and then go about their business so they don't necessarily have to be there, uh, when the drone arrives to, to, to pick it up. Well, we expect it to save a lot of time, both for the business and for the user. So instead of going to the store and picking something up, you're, you're, you're staying at home and waiting for the drone to deliver it to your door. Stop. Uh, for a worker, instead of going out, uh, to meet, uh, someone at a retail location, they can essentially place the package on the auto litter, go back inside and continue working. So we think it will save a lot of [00:01:30] time. Speaker 1: Right now, when the us, the drones are operating in Texas and Virginia, and the company's done more than 340,000 deliveries worldwide, there are other companies betting on the future of drone delivery, namely Amazon. So this is likely something you'll see more of in the coming years as companies look for new faster ways to get you what you need. Wings, drones are super lightweight. They're mostly made of foam, like what you'd find in a bike helmet. They have a bunch of little propellers to help them take off and hover vertically, and they can fly it up to 70 miles an hour. [00:02:00] They can also go as high as 400 feet, and they're designed to fly in various weather conditions, including wind and rain. As long as it's not too extreme. The drones are designed to fly carefully so your glass bottles or coffee won't spill or break. They can carry up to around three pounds. Wing has its own app for delivery through some partners, but it's also teamed up with companies like DoorDash to deliver through their app. Speaker 2: And that's, that's the future. Uh, the future is that that Wing provides that drone delivery service, and we, we like to make it available through any app you, you [00:02:30] might use. Speaker 1: Now, you may be concerned about a bunch of drones flying overhead, capturing images or information, but that's not the point of these drones. Speaker 2: These are not like drones that you buy off the shelf with high resolution cameras. They don't have high resolution cameras. They essentially have low resolution sensors that are, that are used for navigation. They point directly at the ground, they're not being reviewed by a pilot. Remember, it's, it's flying autonomously. Uh, so, so we, we take customers' privacy very seriously. Speaker 1: The auto loader is slated to be deployed later year. The idea [00:03:00] is to hopefully make drone delivery less of a hassle and eventually more ubiquitous. But what do you think do you think drone delivery will take off? See what I did there? Let us know in the comments below. And don't forget to hit like and subscribe for more videos from cnet.