We really are living in the future.
We trust robots to do a lot of things — like parking our cars, cleaning our floors, even delivering our mail. With the rise of robotics comes some very odd, new experiences for us… like seeing robots at the grocery store.
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So, what are grocery robots about, and why do stores have them? Let’s find out.
Here he is.
Never in my life have I seen a robot at a grocery store. I definitely would be excited to see one, but it’s also very surreal to see something out of science fiction just bumping around a grocery store.
TikToker David Ma had no idea what it was for.
He thought it might be for enforcing COVID protocols, which I think would be kind of cool. Then people could yell at a robot instead of people getting paid minimum wage just trying to get through the day, you know?
However, it definitely wasn’t for that.
David tried to stand in front of it, but nothing happened. So, what the hell is this thing, and why does Badger Technologies have robots in grocery stores? TikTok users had some guesses.
A lot of people thought it was like a big Roomba.
They thought its purpose was to go around the store and detects spills and messes, then alert human employees to clean them. However, that seems like a pretty minor job for such an expensive robot.
It actually does a ton more.
This is Badger. It’s a retail robot created by Badger Technologies, and its purpose has nothing to do with cleaning. This thing is designed to keep track of stock, price differences, and empty shelves.
It scans each shelf for discrepancies.
It logs gaps in the shelves, price differences, and stock quantities. The data is then used to increase store efficiency and allow for employees to see what’s in stock, what’s out of place, and what needs re-ordering.
So it’s not a Roomba at all.
But here’s the thing: Badger technologies HAS created a new robot during the pandemic, and it does have some ties to our more familiar cleaning robots.
The new robot cleans…kind of.
It doesn’t clean up messes, but it DOES do something we’ve become very used to during COVID: it sanitizes. This UV robot goes up and down the shelves and sanitizes everything on them with a UV light.
So, where are these things, anyway?
They can be found in Woodman’s Markets, where they’re being constantly being tested for national rollout. I would love to see one of these things in the wild!
