This article was 1st published on our sister Site, The Internet Of All Things.
Beijing, Nov. 6, 2018: Lenovo has opened an unmanned store, ‘Lenovo Lecoo Unmanned Store’, at its new Beijing campus.
So how is this Lenovo unmanned store different from regular stores? Consumers can walk up to the door, cameras will recognise their faces, they then browse the aisles, pick out what they want as usual, then…well, they just walk out. The customers’ accounts are automatically settled via mobile payment, posted Lenovo on its official blog.
Daryl Cromer, Lenovo’s Vice President of Research and Technology, as quoted in the blog post, said, “You can learn a lot by reading about technology, however you learn even more when applying it to specific challenges—even in a cutting-edge retail space. We can now understand some of the technologies and challenges our customers face, allowing us to make better devices and tailored solutions. The store becomes a powerful pilot program for technologies that move beyond the Lenovo campus.”
Instead of store staff, you have Tablets acting as the staff. There is a Tablet you wave to when entering, which makes sure you’re being matched with your profile and not someone else’s. What Lenovo is learning from this little experiment itself is how to implement and optimise facial recognition for all of Lenovo’s devices and looked into specialised Tablets with a camera better-suited for facial recognition.
Next in the line for Lenovo on the convenience store front? The IT major said it was working in several areas: ways to improve the shopping experience for the customer and store owners with technology upgrades; the ability to add Online to offline delivery or even fun things like “a cappuccino machine of the future, where you walk up and it knows your preferences and brews the beverage exactly how you want it.
Source and Image Credit: Lenovo StoryHub
