You clearly don’t shop at Whole Foods. Their policy (at least in the two stores I visit most often) seems to be to always be rearranging the store, presumably to force shoppers to encounter new things that they might miss if they just zeroed in on their regular purchases in the same locations every time. Playing Find the Hummus gets pretty old.
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I notice that a lot of the local grocery stores will rearrange stuff every couple of years, too. I don’t shop at Whole Foods, though, because I am too broke for that shit! I do shop at TJ’s, which never seems to change much at all, even from location to location. Which I appreciate!
I think TJ’s lets the local employees do at least some the layout, unlike, say, Target stores, where the shelf layouts are to be exactly as dictated from corporate.
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Interestingly, the link to developers goes to a page where the new Quirky (that is the company) coffee pot is noted.
https://poppyhome.com/pour-over
I have several of their internet-of-things devices and I wouldn’t be surprised to know if they made this…especially as the page to the coffee pot says “Get automatic refills on your favorite coffee beans, water filters, and coffee filters delivered by Amazon when the machine detects that you’re running low.”
Sadly, I probably won’t be able to wait for Home Depot to blow these out like they have a lot of other devices to buy cheaply…
I’m not seeing it.
You are.
That’s nice.
Doesn’t make it real.
He has a very good point in that there is one person involved here who has name-called, sworn, and been generally abusive.
This is for real? not an April Fools joke?
unreal… Amazon is trying to take over the world.
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I’d love something like that for my mailbox, which is almost a quarter mile from my house, to notify me when the mailman comes by. But as my mailbox is almost a quarter mile from my house it is outside my wifi range.
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Pringles can?
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You could probably rig up something with a standard doorbell and a long buried wire.
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Do you know your mail person? Would it be possible to have them text you when they arrive? Just a text of “mail” would be enough. Of course if they are so kind, a holiday gift would be nice.I am not sure if you are truly rural, or one of those communities where the mailboxes are at the development’s entrance. If it is multiple mailboxes at one site, one text could be spread around. I live in a big city and my mail arrives pretty much the same time everyday.
That has a poor gain, is better for shielding other interfering signals from wrong directions.
A quarter mile is well-within a possible wifi range. The current terrestrial record is 237 miles mountain-to-mountain, or 260 miles ground-to-balloon.
Of course, a low power transmitter with omnidirectional antenna won’t work here.
We also can use something else than wifi; any kind of transmitter, with a matching receiver on the other side, will do the job. A battery-powered “squib” that squeaks a beep at a given frequency (maybe modulated to avoid issues with false positives from interferences) will do the job. An industrial 433 MHz module will do the job well. Possibly with a directional antenna, too; for both points fixed, an omni antenna is wasting power. The receiver can be connected to a local network, or via USB directly to the server, working around the need for wifi entirely.
If it has to be wifi, I’d go for a classical Yagi-Uda antenna. If possible on both ends of the link, but if you don’t want a second accesspoint then try experimenting with bigger yagi or maybe even a small dish antenna at the mailbox site.
Another possibility is an optical survey. A camera with a telephoto lens watching the mailbox, OpenCV-based computer vision application, and alerting when there is an activity there.
Todo: break out my 31dB monster-antenna and point it out of the window and do some wararmchairing…
Todo, part 2: get that Chinese downconverter, attach to RTL-SDR, and look at more ISM-band stuff out there. Possibly run automatic scan according to those algorithms described in those Richard Poisel’s electronic warfare books, possibly with a motorized antenna mount. Cameras, toys, microphones, doorbells, name it and it is floating around.
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Rural enough that it’s called a rural route 
10 mailboxes at the end of a private road. Arrival time varies by about 1-2 hours with a different carrier up to two times a week. All the devices on amazon have a range that maxes out at 400 feet. Working from home I do ship packages somewhat often (depending on the time of year) so when I can do a carrier pickup, it’s not an issue as he comes to my door to get them.
Different carriers is a problem. The only time ours switches is vacations and sick days, and now that you mention it if the carrier is different the times do change. Again I live in a big city with your mailbox at your front door. At my old house the mailman would even ring the doorbells when he delivered. A half a mile trip back and forth to the mailbox would be tough even in nice weather.
and a sign saying “please ring when delivering” ?
Of course, how you find out when this item has been delivered could be an issue… 
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I want to see the button to buy another 55 gallon barrel of personal lubricant: http://boingboing.net/2013/03/15/55-gallons-of-personal-lube.html
They should create a club just for people who qualify to receive one of those buttons!
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Fast forward 2 years: Amazon has created the infrastructure and services and all appliances come with these specialized buttons embedded in them.
Remember also that Amazon has launched Echo, which can use this infrastructure.
Need soap? Ask you washer. Need lotion? Ask your medicine cabinet.
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You won’t need to ask. They’ll ask you. Constantly. And make fun of your past purchases, and wonder if you’d look better if your tried one Unilever’s fine new facial scrubs.
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Could we use the visible spectrum?
Update: aw heck, that’s a signal FOR the mailman.
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You don’t have a vehicle and yet you shop at Cosco? Perhaps I should reconsider my shopping habits, though it is slightly out of way.
