Samsung’s new partnership provides another glimpse of drone delivery future – only in an Irish city

In Oranmore, a small town in County Galway, Ireland, you can now get a taste of a potential, instantly-gratifying drone delivery future. in A newly announced partnership With an Irish drone delivery company Manna, Samsung’s Irish online store promises delivery of its small electronics such as phones and smart watches “within three minutes” when ordered by someone in Oranmore.

According to Samsung’s announcement, Manna uses a “custom-developed aerospace drone” to complete deliveries. The drone’s ability to travel at speeds in excess of 60 kilometers per hour (about 37 mph) guarantees those aggressive delivery times, although working only within a two-kilometer radius from their dispatch center would probably help. is.

Samsung and Manna are not breaking new ground with their partnership. People living in Oranmore may already be familiar with the manna drones that deliver everything from groceries to medicines Manna achieved a deal

In 2020 with the grocery chain Tesco.

Picture: Samsung

Both Samsung and Manna say they are eager to expand the distribution service nationwide, but other companies outside Ireland have also experimented with drones. Amazon began testing its drones in the United Kingdom in 2016 after receiving regulatory approval. In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has also begun approving for other small-scale trials, such as distributing prescriptions for UPS and CVS partnerships to house retirement in Florida, and Walmart-run trials in North Carolina .

All these tests seem to be in service starting to feel like an unavoidable reality: next day shipping is becoming more like next minute shipping. Regulators need to agree on standards for drone flights, and in the case of the FAA if this happens, the freedom to fly will require new detection systems to determine ownership. All of this may seem like a long way from looking at the government’s momentum, but like this stunt from Samsung, there are more and more instances where that potential future bleeds into the present.