Amazon Delivery Drones May Scan Your Home, Suggest Repairs

Amazon is never i to miss an opportunity for new acquirement streams, so while the company continues to develop automated drones for Prime Air order deliveries, it's besides thinking about what else they could do during the flight to your abode. A new patent granted to Amazon this week reveals one potentially profitable actress office: assessing your firm and seeing if whatever repairs are needed.

The patent, entitled "Trigger agents in video streams for drones," was spotted by Business Insider. It describes the drone being able to scan and capture data about a destination. That information is then received past a remote computer system and analyzed to place its characteristics.

Why would Amazon want to do that? Because it opens the door to a new type of recommendation system, which in turn means the potential for a new revenue stream. For example, the data the drone captures could highlight a roof repair is needed, or your trees are overgrown or dying and propose an advisable fix/service. Possibly your garden looks like it needs some dearest, so Amazon will start recommending garden tools and accessories.

Anyone concerned about privacy volition be glad to hear Amazon views this as an opt-in service. So you can cull to accept your dwelling scanned past the drone, and if yous do, expect a review to get in via electronic mail, text message, or through an Amazon account notification along with some purchase options.

Whether this feature ends up being a core function of the drone delivery process is a secondary concern for consumers likewise every bit Amazon. Correct now, the focus is on actually getting the drones approved so they are immune to wing and deliver packages. Only once that's upward and running should we expect additional services to kickoff being offered.