6 ms·

What's the purpose of the green square, anyways? Why not just have a regular camera feed?

nfinished 1y ago
Lazy subcontracted software engineers
mytailorisrich 1y ago
It could a psychological trick: Look the camera is filming and we got your face specifically, so don't try to steal. In my local supermarket, the screen turns on and shows the face of the customer when they select "finish and pay", which I suspect is to give a "honesty nudge".
theamk 1y ago
Increase deterrence effect to scare away shoplifters. Home depot goes out of the way to make its cameras visible. There is a large "camera" sign, bright light to catch your attention, a visible display to show it's not a fake, and sometimes even a motion activated chime. I assume the green square around the face is the next step in a game.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  The shoplifters don’t care. Look at any hardware section at homedepot. Half the bags are ripped open. Try and find some stock they say is there online. Its not it already got stolen. The registers is not where they need to be combatting theft. It is everywhere else in that store.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - npteljes 1y ago
    Some shoplifters don't care. There is no good trick that works on everyone. >The registers is not where they need to be combating theft. There is plenty of theft happening at the self-checkout registers as well, as it's very easy to do.
  - fercircularbuf 1y ago
    As someone living in Japan, the sheer number of instances of theft in your description shocks me. Is this that common there?
    - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
      That is certainly not my experience in the stores I go to.
    - codingdave 1y ago
      Nope, I've never seen anything like that. To be fair, I'm sure some stores have higher crime rates than others, and just knowing human nature, people whose experiences are pleasant and uneventful probably aren't taking time to share anecdotes about their local stores.
    - mattlondon 1y ago
      Often happens in the UK for things like bags of screws or bathroom/plumbing fittings. The charitable view is someone is opening the packaging to e.g. make sure that the thread is the right size (in the UK especially we suffer from annoying mixture of old legacy imperial measurement era pipes/threads/etc as well as metric). The unchartiable view is they are opening the packet and stealing the bit they need/lost/broke 45 minutes earlier and need to finish the job.
      - hakfoo 1y ago
        This could be a by-product of bad merchandising too. The local Home Depot sells some types of screws only in pre-packed bags. The Ace Hardware a block over (a franchise of independently owned shops) sells the same screws from cabinets with several hundred types of loose parts, and you can select as many as you need and bag yourself. You can even put multiple types and prices of items in one bag So if you need one, HD makes you buy four. If you need sixteen, HD makes you buy a bunch of extra plastic waste. That might create an unexpected nudge towards just ripping the bag and pocketing the rest.
    - kube-system 1y ago
- pants2 1y ago
  Ironically, Home Depot is the only store I ever shoplifted from because of a bad UX on their app. They have/had a "shop in store" mode, where you can scan an item and pay for it in the app. So I scan and pay and leave. A few days later I get an email "your item hasn't been picked up and you've been refunded." Apparently if you scan an item and pay for it in the store they still expect you to wait for their staff to approve you, or something. It wasn't clear. This was also only necessary because they didn't accept Apple pay so I had no way of paying for my items except through the app.
- m463 1y ago
  I hate the beeping cameras in the tools aisle and frequently stop browsing and leave also locked cabinets... cause me to not buy whatever is in them.
  - mattegan 1y ago
    Came here hoping someone would mention those absolutely cursed cameras - the ones with the pre-canned video of a guy in a back office "monitoring" the feeds? Gets to me the worst when I'm on my 3rd Home Depot trip of the day BEEP looking through a box of pipe fittings that is filled with everything _except_ the fitting matching the label on the box BEEP okay.. the Home Depot website says it's in stock at the one 20 minutes up the store BEEP but, that's what it said about BEEP the stock at this store so.. but hmm BEEP maybe I could combine these two other fittings and save a BEEP ... trip to the other store, okay I'll look here for... BEEP hmm, the two fittings I would need to combine also aren't in the right BEEP box, but... it looks like maybe there's some that someone put back into a BEEP different box? Oh, wait BEEP _none_ of these fittings are in their correct box? What!? BEEP Sorry I've just never had anybody to talk with this about. I hate those things with a passion. Let me know if you'd like to start a support group.
    - theamk 1y ago
      And yet, we keep going here... There are fewer and fewer physical stores left that sell non-food for reasonable prices. Home Depot is often the only choice (at least in my area, the competitors, Lowes and Ace Hardwares, are more expensive, sell fewer things, and sometimes worse quality too)
- nmeofthestate 1y ago
  >Increase deterrence effect to scare away shoplifters. Exactly - these checkout monitors are positioned so you can see you're being filmed. I'm surprised the purpose of this is unclear to anyone.
- luma 1y ago
  Around here they have been deploying parking lot camera systems with a blinking blue light. Some sources have suggested these sorts of "made you look" attention grabbers are being deployed near cameras in order to get people to reflexively look at the camera, giving the system a better shot at capturing face biometrics.
npteljes 1y ago
Emphasizes that the system pays attention to the shopper. They are aiming for a psychological effect.

Lazy subcontracted software engineers

It could a psychological trick: Look the camera is filming and we got your face specifically, so don't try to steal. In my local supermarket, the screen turns on and shows the face of the customer when they select "finish and pay", which I suspect is to give a "honesty nudge".

theamk 1y ago

Increase deterrence effect to scare away shoplifters. Home depot goes out of the way to make its cameras visible. There is a large "camera" sign, bright light to catch your attention, a visible display to show it's not a fake, and sometimes even a motion activated chime. I assume the green square around the face is the next step in a game.

kjkjadksj 1y ago
The shoplifters don’t care. Look at any hardware section at homedepot. Half the bags are ripped open. Try and find some stock they say is there online. Its not it already got stolen. The registers is not where they need to be combatting theft. It is everywhere else in that store.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- npteljes 1y ago
  Some shoplifters don't care. There is no good trick that works on everyone. >The registers is not where they need to be combating theft. There is plenty of theft happening at the self-checkout registers as well, as it's very easy to do.
- fercircularbuf 1y ago
  As someone living in Japan, the sheer number of instances of theft in your description shocks me. Is this that common there?
  - amanaplanacanal 1y ago
    That is certainly not my experience in the stores I go to.
  - codingdave 1y ago
    Nope, I've never seen anything like that. To be fair, I'm sure some stores have higher crime rates than others, and just knowing human nature, people whose experiences are pleasant and uneventful probably aren't taking time to share anecdotes about their local stores.
  - mattlondon 1y ago
    Often happens in the UK for things like bags of screws or bathroom/plumbing fittings. The charitable view is someone is opening the packaging to e.g. make sure that the thread is the right size (in the UK especially we suffer from annoying mixture of old legacy imperial measurement era pipes/threads/etc as well as metric). The unchartiable view is they are opening the packet and stealing the bit they need/lost/broke 45 minutes earlier and need to finish the job.
    - hakfoo 1y ago
      This could be a by-product of bad merchandising too. The local Home Depot sells some types of screws only in pre-packed bags. The Ace Hardware a block over (a franchise of independently owned shops) sells the same screws from cabinets with several hundred types of loose parts, and you can select as many as you need and bag yourself. You can even put multiple types and prices of items in one bag So if you need one, HD makes you buy four. If you need sixteen, HD makes you buy a bunch of extra plastic waste. That might create an unexpected nudge towards just ripping the bag and pocketing the rest.
  - kube-system 1y ago
pants2 1y ago
Ironically, Home Depot is the only store I ever shoplifted from because of a bad UX on their app. They have/had a "shop in store" mode, where you can scan an item and pay for it in the app. So I scan and pay and leave. A few days later I get an email "your item hasn't been picked up and you've been refunded." Apparently if you scan an item and pay for it in the store they still expect you to wait for their staff to approve you, or something. It wasn't clear. This was also only necessary because they didn't accept Apple pay so I had no way of paying for my items except through the app.
m463 1y ago
I hate the beeping cameras in the tools aisle and frequently stop browsing and leave also locked cabinets... cause me to not buy whatever is in them.
- mattegan 1y ago
  Came here hoping someone would mention those absolutely cursed cameras - the ones with the pre-canned video of a guy in a back office "monitoring" the feeds? Gets to me the worst when I'm on my 3rd Home Depot trip of the day BEEP looking through a box of pipe fittings that is filled with everything _except_ the fitting matching the label on the box BEEP okay.. the Home Depot website says it's in stock at the one 20 minutes up the store BEEP but, that's what it said about BEEP the stock at this store so.. but hmm BEEP maybe I could combine these two other fittings and save a BEEP ... trip to the other store, okay I'll look here for... BEEP hmm, the two fittings I would need to combine also aren't in the right BEEP box, but... it looks like maybe there's some that someone put back into a BEEP different box? Oh, wait BEEP _none_ of these fittings are in their correct box? What!? BEEP Sorry I've just never had anybody to talk with this about. I hate those things with a passion. Let me know if you'd like to start a support group.
  - theamk 1y ago
    And yet, we keep going here... There are fewer and fewer physical stores left that sell non-food for reasonable prices. Home Depot is often the only choice (at least in my area, the competitors, Lowes and Ace Hardwares, are more expensive, sell fewer things, and sometimes worse quality too)
nmeofthestate 1y ago
>Increase deterrence effect to scare away shoplifters. Exactly - these checkout monitors are positioned so you can see you're being filmed. I'm surprised the purpose of this is unclear to anyone.
luma 1y ago
Around here they have been deploying parking lot camera systems with a blinking blue light. Some sources have suggested these sorts of "made you look" attention grabbers are being deployed near cameras in order to get people to reflexively look at the camera, giving the system a better shot at capturing face biometrics.

npteljes 1y ago

Emphasizes that the system pays attention to the shopper. They are aiming for a psychological effect.