archive link

Where the fridge cases were previously lined with simple glass doors, there were door-size computer screens instead. These “smart doors” obscured shoppers’ view of the fridges’ actual contents, replacing them with virtual rows of the Gatorades, Bagel Bites and other goods it promised were inside. The digital displays had a distinct advantage over regular glass, at least for the retailer: ads.

These internet-connected fridge panels, developed by a Chicago startup called Cooler Screens Inc., frequently flickered, crashed or showed the wrong products. Every so often, they caught fire. But store managers were stuck with them. As part of a 10-year contract with Walgreens for a split of the ad revenue, Cooler Screens had installed 10,000 smart doors at hundreds of US locations like this one. It planned to install 35,000 more.

On Dec. 14, Avakian’s team secretly cut the data feeds to more than 100 Walgreens stores in the Chicago area. The dozen or so smart doors affected in each of these stores either glazed over with white pixels or blacked out altogether. Customers could no longer see where the Coke and Red Bull and Hot Pockets and Heineken sat, and either assumed the fridges were out of order or found themselves rummaging through one by one. Some staffers pasted pieces of paper on the opaque screens that read, for example, “assorted sports drinks & coffee.”

103 points

Sometimes you can have a thing that isnt a computer. Sometimes you can just have a glass door. I promise it’s okay.

permalink
report
reply
39 points

When I walk through my house I have sweet motion activated lights and doodads that I have spent hours tweaking and I enjoy thoroughly.

In the bathroom I use a switch.

Not everything needs to be “smart”

permalink
report
parent
reply
20 points

I have my bathroom fan turn on if the lid has been open more than 45 seconds … some things you just don’t (yet) know you need to be smart :-D

For me, all of our lights are smart (some bulbs with smart switches that talk to the smart bulbs and some just smart switches), but, everything needs to be able to function like it’s dumb … nothing needs an app to function. The wall switches will function as expected … home assistant adds additional functionality, voice commands add extra functionality, but, it all works as you’d reasonably expect it to if you just go and hit the wall switch.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Okay I’ll admit the fan thing is clever…

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

In tech, SMART is an acronym. I shit you zero nots, this is for real.

Self Monitoring And Reporting Technologies

Fuck SMART everything. I am fundamentally at odds with telemetry, what is it up to half our mobile data plans are lost to advertisers? W.t.f.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Same, I’m running homeassistant. Things that are out of the way like PC under desk get WakeOnLan from HA, or chandeliers, and grow lights for my wife’s indoor trees get smart treatment. Kitchen lights are switches, because if I’m in the kitchen I will be by the switches and opening phone to launch HA app and scroll to a smart light button would take much longer.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

I’ve got small dumblights that are motion-activated and run on AAA batteries. Bought one for the bathrooms specifically so getting up in the middle of the night to take a leak doesn’t involve turning on the full light. They worked well enough (and they were cheap enough) that we now have like 6 in various places.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

But think of the ads we can’t play! THE ADS!

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Have they tried subscriptions? I’ve heard it’s the next big deal after ads.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Install electrochromic glass. Sell Walgreens Prime subscriptions that will allow you to turn off ads and untint the glass.

permalink
report
parent
reply
84 points

Good. What an awful concept. A whole bunch of extra screwing around trying to keep products aligned with what’s on screen along with maintenance and running costs; just so you can piss off your customers with a worse experience and waste more of their time with advertising nobody wants.

permalink
report
reply
34 points

If it helps, they also lock a lot of product, requiring employees to come and help customers directly.

https://eurweb.com/2025/walgreens-theft-prevention-struggle/

It’s like they made their stores as hostile as possible to shop in.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points

The only reason i go to Walgreens at all is for my medication. I’d gladly go somewhere else but they strangled out the competition. It’s literally the only place that consistently has my medication.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

the only place that consistently has my medication

is there a Costco near where you live? if so, you might give their pharmacy a try (you don’t need to pay for a Costco membership if all you’re doing is getting a prescription)

I had similar challenges finding a pharmacy that consistently has my ADHD medication in stock. a few months ago I tried Costco based on a recommendation from my doctor, so far they’ve been able to fill my prescription every month no problem.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

It’s like they made their stores as hostile as possible to shop in.

I saw a tweet that called it a “weird deodorant museum” and that phrase is now permanently etched into my brain. it’s such a perfect description, similar to “private taxi for your burrito” for Doordash etc.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

And money! Customers pay for these atrocities.

permalink
report
parent
reply
64 points

Ads are the cancer of Humanity.

permalink
report
reply
10 points

i’ve got an ad-blocking DNS on home network and my phone, i use youtube revanced, i’ve even got a fucken apk patcher to strip ad shit out of mobile games. it’s WILD to me how tolerant people are of ads. like anytime someone’s showing me a video on their phone and an ad plays, i have to do a little mental math on whether it’ll be annoying or mutually beneficial to just start playing the video on my phone instead.

and it takes such little effort to get rid of them! i’m constantly offering to teach people how to use patchers or revanced, folks are just like “nah it doesn’t bother me” MAN, HOW? sponsorblock alone is a goddamn godsend, sometimes more than 30% of a video is just ads and self promotion! how does anyone happily throw away their time like that‽

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

People value their time far loo low. You’ve only got a limited time on the planet. Don’t waste it listening to people telling you what you need to buy.

I love what Sao Paolo in Brazil did: banned all outdoor advertising. I’d love to live in a place that did that. https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secrets-sao-paulo-uncovered-outdoor-advertising-ban/

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Doesnt the state of maine also ban outdoor advertisements.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points
*

I feel this so hard. Ads and PtW are slowly becoming the only business model because we have stone-age-level impulse control. Hopefully, someone like the EU eventually unfucks it and we switch to micropayments to cover server costs.

The only way it could get worse is if they started banning anyone too poor to properly whale.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

Nah. That would make it better. The whales can go whale in their little ecosystems and we can keep using and making the fediverse better.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

That’s true. At least there’d be a wave of people forced to discover better ways. It’d suck for things like YouTube videos that have too much overhead to be free, though.

Since I posted this, it also occurred to me that predatory lending could make it’s way in. That’s how a lot of other underclass-serving businesses work.

permalink
report
parent
reply
54 points

I would definitely recommend reading the full article. There’s all kinds of hilarious tidbits. Like that the Cooler Screens ceo Arsen Avakian’s leadership seems to be rather fiscally disastrous wherever he goes. Or my favorite bit:

Avakian discussed the concept that would become Cooler Screens with friends in Chicago business circles, including Wasson [co-founder of Cooler Screens]. As head of Walgreens from 2009 to 2015, Wasson is most remembered for overseeing its fraught international merger with Alliance Boots, a European chain. But he also bet on technology, gussying up its pharmacies with tablets, acquiring e-tailer Drugstore.com and leading the company’s $140 million investment in a then-promising startup called Theranos. (Oops.)

Jeepers fucking creepers, you would think that Walgreens/ big corporations in general would do some kind of background investigation or get a PI to find out if they have any skeletons in their closets that would prove fiscally harmful if entered into an agreement. Their total lack of operational security and basically saying ‘Yes, Daddy, please?’ when presented with an opportunity from the same guy that dragged the company into the whole Theranos debacle is flabbergasting.

Wasson set up a demo meeting with billionaire Stefano Pessina, Walgreens’ largest shareholder and his successor as CEO, with whom he remained friendly after departing the pharmacy chain. “‘We’re not tech guys,’” Avakian remembers the Walgreens team saying. “‘Prove it to us.’” He and Wasson say that based on their PowerPoint presentation, the company approved a six-store pilot program for 2018.

A fucking POWERPOINT is all it took even after Theranos to convince them of this boondoggle.

permalink
report
reply
26 points

You weren’t kidding! This is a rollercoaster ride of incredible twists and turns!

The problem, according to three former Cooler Screens executives and a former Yahoo executive, was that their clients thought of the screens as “shopper marketing,” an old-timey ad category that covered in-store promos like the balloons or cardboard displays that clerks hang over cases of beer. Spending in this area was far lower than the more lucrative digital ad rates Avakian hoped to charge. One of the former Cooler Screens execs says that Avakian wanted marketing dollars well above what the industry was willing to pay and that his lieutenants could be preposterously condescending on calls with the Yahoo sales team, which at times devolved into shouting matches. “The Yahoo people hated them!” this former exec says. “Their MO was to ride them [Yahoo] like Secretariat.” (A Cooler Screens spokesperson says that this description is inaccurate and that Avakian’s relationship with Yahoo executives remained positive.)

Condescending calls with Yahoo sales team. Fucking hilarious.

permalink
report
parent
reply
19 points

Agreed. Avakian is fascinating because he’s so entitled in the article. If someone doesn’t want to buy his product he just rails against how unfair they were to him.

Bro: it’s business. If your product were nearly as good as you claim it is, you wouldn’t need to force people into using it.

Also, the end of the article points out that Walgreens has been terribly mismanaged and is a very low-performing company, and they’re still experimenting with screens, just not with Avakian. Hilarious.

permalink
report
parent
reply
38 points

Comedy gold, except for everyone who has to try and shop at a Walgreens.

permalink
report
reply
16 points

I imagine it’s less fun for employees.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

They just keep finding interesting ways to fail!

permalink
report
parent
reply

Technology

!technology@beehaw.org

Create post

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Community stats

  • 3.2K

    Monthly active users

  • 3.2K

    Posts

  • 57K

    Comments