Walmart Patents Smart Shopping Cart
Marie Donlon | October 10, 2018
A sketch of how the cart might work. Source: WalmartRetail giant Walmart has applied for a patent for a smart shopping cart that tracks a customer’s temperature, grip, heart rate and walking speed, all in the name of offering the retailer insight into its customers.
According to the patent application, the smart cart would collect this data from sensors located on the shopping carts. Once collected, that data will be sent over the internet to Walmart’s servers.
Assuring its customers that the shopping carts would not be used to collect personally identifiable information, Walmart intends to use the smart carts "for alerting store associates that a customer may need assistance.”
The patent, which was published in August, is called "System and Method for a Biometric Feedback Cart Handle."
Turning "ambulance chasers" into "associate customer chasers" maybe?
This statement is laughable, "Assuring its customers that the shopping carts would not be used to collect personally identifiable information," is like saying, "Trust us, this system can't be hacked, so why worry?"
Any electronic data gathering system CAN and WILL be hacked and used by criminals.
I've had my "protected" data hacked at least four times. And that's only the ones I been told about.
No thanks!
How about ditching the data collection and just have the cart provide me a map to where an item is? That would help lower my blood pressure considerably.
Hooker
Funny, most of the carts in our local store pull to the left, pull to the right, have only 3 wheels on the floor, or clunk, clunk, clunk because of flat spots on the wheels.
Wow! So glad Walmart is addressing the common issue of passing out in the grocery store. Possibly Walmart can book my next doctor appointment while I shop. Walmart engineers or whoever is filing patents need to get out of their headset!