Amazon’s new smart shopping cart looks like it has a pair of eyes peering at your groceries

Amazon has announced an updated version of its Dash Cart, a shopping cart that can be used to avoid waiting in line at the store.

Amazon has been slowly rolling out the original Dash Cart to its Whole Foods Market stores. The new Dash Cart will only be available at the Whole Foods store in Westford, Massachusetts, before going to other Whole Foods locations in the US.

The main feature of the cart is a sensor array in the rim that uses artificial intelligence and barcode scanning to identify what you put in and make a live receipt. In this video from 2020, you can see that the system is very easy to use, and will recognize items as soon as you put them in the cart. A built-in scale and a touchscreen allow you to check how much you've spent.

Image: Amazon

The basic functions of the Dash Cart are the same as before with some additions. The carts are better at locating themselves in stores now that they have doubled their capacity. The touchscreen can be used to find goods, but it will also show nearby products and deals.

The battery life of the carts has been improved so that they can be taken outside to shoppers' cars instead of being kept in their charging stations. The company released a press release.

To test durability, we baked the technology in an oven and froze test carts in a giant freezer to ensure they would survive harsh weather conditions. We also dropped heavy weights into test carts’ baskets more than 100,000 times to ensure they would remain usable after impact — needless to say, we feel confident the Dash Cart is durable.

It's cool, so you can ride it down a hill.

The carts do seem useful, and are part of a trend to remove checkouts from supermarkets and grocery stores in general. Amazon's Just Walk Out technology has been used to pursue this transformation. It may be easier to put this tech in carts than it is to put it in store rafters.