The onslaught of tech gear being delivered for WIRED Reviews, combined with the samples I receive constantly for my side hustle at Drinkhacker, means that delivery trucks are a constant occurrence on my suburban street. UPS and FedEx both make drops at my house nearly every day, and that’s not to mention occasional deliveries from the likes of DHL and, of course, Amazon and its ilk. But it’s usually not a problem. I work from home, so picking up packages left on the doorstep is just part of the scenery.

What is a problem is that I can’t be home 24 hours a day, and even though I have a very kind neighbor across the way who keeps an eye out for boxes on my front steps when I’m traveling, he isn’t always at home either. Package hold requests aren’t consistently honored by either of the major carriers—and earlier this year, FedEx seemingly discontinued its vacation hold option without bothering to tell anyone, the modern epidemic of porch piracy be damned. (A rep has since confirmed this with me, though no formal announcement has ever been made.)

Having packages held at shipping centers or access points usually costs money, typically about $5 per package and often more depending on the length of the hold, and that involves a trip after I get home to collect what’s arrived. If I’m gone for a week, that can mean fetching a dozen boxes or more.

All of that is a time-consuming pain, for which a startup called Hyve has come along to offer an assuagement: A smart lockbox that lets delivery drivers drop off packages in a secure location, notifying the homeowner whenever it’s been accessed.

Source link