Amazon Key: automated deliveries arrive in Milan and Rome

It is not yet deliveries with robots, which in the United States and Asia are now much more widespread than what one might think and about which we have often written on Italian Techbut almost: here the automation does not lie in who makes the delivery but in how it is done.

The service is called Amazon Key, has been tested in the USA for over 5 years and is now also arriving in Italy: couriers can deliver packages to recipients, if they live in an apartment building, even if they are not at home. Works thanks to a digital bulletin board (this), which is located at the entrance of the building: the messengers make themselves known and the door is opened. At the base of everything is the technology of the Italian Laserwall, from which they have confirmed that in this initial phase the service will affect a thousand buildings between Milan and Rome.

Laserwall already produces screens for condominiums, a sort of digital blackboards that provide (for example) useful information about the neighborhood and which will now also function as automatic doorman for Amazon deliveries.

Couriers monitored in real time

Exactly as it happens in the States, the couriers will be identified and tracked in real time via the Amazon cloud and will gain access to the condominium through a temporary digital key valid for one entry only.

The aim of everything is to both improve the effectiveness of the service and counter the phenomenon of the so-called porch piratethe theft of packages left in front of homes (on the porch, which in English is porch) in the absence of the recipients.

It’s not over: still in the US, Amazon is establishing agreements with shopping centers and supermarkets to allow them to place some products on a particular showcase of the site and let people buy them directly online; at that point, the delivery man will pass by the shop for collect the items ordered (or the shopping) and deliver everything to the customer. Whether he is at home or not.