I live in a Durham, NC and there is a small radius where a company called Flytrex does drone food delivery. We use it every couple weeks since they have almost no fees unlike Uber Eats. From what I understand they place the order, drive a car to pick up your food, drive back to the launch pad, then load and send the drone. It then drops the food using a long cable that leaves behind a reusable bag in your front lawn. It’s surprisingly accurate since it has about a 15ft diameter circle to hit in my front yard to avoid trees and the house.
The one downside is the weight limit and weather. If you go over something like 8 pounds then the drone will fly what it can and someone will follow begging in a car with the remainder. Bad weather means car delivery.
Fascinating. But curious how it can operate without higher fees? There's still the person driving to the place, waiting for the order, then driving back to launch. In fact, it almost feels like this would be more expensive in many cases than just bringing it straight over. Burning VC money?
Im in a different Flytrex delivery area and I don’t have exact answers but probably some insight. There is a strip mall or two with like 15 restaurants and these are the ones on their service so the driving is really under a mile. Also they seemingly have a new 30% off code for one particular restaurant every few days, likely to funnel orders and make the “last mile” delivery person able to batch pick up. The drone really only took under 4 minutes to fly to my house (I was on the outer edge of the delivery ring so it’s gotta be the furthest atm).
They don’t have to deal with traffic or 3rd party delivery drivers. From hitting order to my first bite was under 30 minutes (on my second order, my first order was super late but they comped me - the first delivery they have a member watch the drone land in your yard to ensure it’s working).
