Would you believe a dry cleaning drone that can deliver clean clothes to customers in Philadelphia? Will drones get taken to the cleaners?
Manayunk Cleaners came up with the idea for this high-tech form of customer service by mini drone. See the embed above to view the dry cleaning drone in action. The four-bladed DJI Phantom quadracopter (which was primarily made for aerial photography) can carry a payload of about two pounds worth of laundry. Higher-end models can carry more.
According to owner Harout Vartanian, 24, in discussing the remote-controlled drone that delivers clothes, “We fly it to your house, it makes a noise, you pick it up and that’s that.” He added that “It’s amazing. It’s something new, it’s definitely a step towards the future. [Customers] have never seen anything like this and hopefully they’ll get used to it because that’s what we’ll plan on doing.”
The owner conceded, however, that “behind the scenes, controlling it, setting it up, it’s a lot harder than it looks,” NBC News reports.
NBC describes how the drone dry cleaning delivery works: “It takes two people — a spotter and pilot — to complete a delivery. The drone is launched from the sidewalk and once airborne, the clothes are attached to a makeshift hanging clip. Then, with clothes securely attached, the drone heads for its destination. But since the drone is small, it’s limited in how far it can go and much can be delivered in one trip.”
Along these lines, we reported previously that Domino’s recently demonstrated a pizza drone (called a DomiCopter) that flies pizza’s right to a customers doorstep.
The Federal Aviation Administration has a 2015 deadline to develop guidelines for domestic commercial drone use. Drones — more specifically the full-size, lethal ones — are subject to a lot of controversy over US-based attacks on foreign soil and their ability to spy on citizens.
Do you think airborne dry cleaning delivery (or pizza delivery for that matter) is merely a publicity stunt or does it have practical viability?
