Hacker News Reader

Comment by gacba | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one who thinks this is a terrible idea? The entire notion of going out to eat with someone is now being co-opted by having to get "entertained" via another device, interfering with conversation, and reducing human interaction. I love the fact that going out to a restaurant means interacting with someone face to face, avoiding email, texting, and phone conversations.

Yes, you can get the hell off my lawn, too. :)

View on HN

The device on the table does not control your life. Ignore it and have a conversation if you want. Or, look into the future and imagine this device with live webcams of your food being prepared, perhaps showing you a short article or video describing the culinary history of the meal you are about to eat. Or perhaps you could use it to settle healthy debates with your friends / SO rather than use your phone - this is slightly more communal / social (assuming you have a smartphone; if you don't have a smartphone, then this opens up the world of debate-settling completely).

Use and imagine technology for what it can be. Don't be mad at it if you can't control your insatiable appetite for technology.

All what you described are the niche applications of a very little interest to the general restaurant going crowd.

They may be of very little interest now, but never assume that peoples' tastes are static (yes, even the masses).

For people with kids who'd otherwise be playing their own games (not an uncommon case, from what I've seen) this would actually increase human interactions, because these are collaborative games.

You must be new to the parenthood :)

There are two types of games - those that kids can figure out on their own and those that need to be explained by their parents. Former get boring quickly (in a matter of minutes) and latter will interfere with the dining. Varies by a child of course, but the rule of thumb is to stick to the games kids are already familiar with if you want to keep them occupied.

(edit) But on a more general note - are these devices just to keep kids entertained? Might not be a bad idea, but it needs to be positioned as such.

But on a more general note - are these devices just to keep kids entertained? Might not be a bad idea, but it needs to be positioned as such.

My guess is that the game portion of the device will be mostly used by kids. Adults will probably try it once out of curiosity.

I was actually in the process of building a service like this, but the kicker on this model is of course the hardware. No matter who keeps the hardware on their inventory, it's not a negligible cost, especially when you account for maintenance, replacement, all of that.

I started working on this project because I work as a waiter. And because of that background, I think that this concept a little risky. There are too many old-school types who won't dig this. But there are a TON of young folks who love to interact with anything touchscreen-y.

But the real value in this system is of course the data. This could be a huge "Voice of the Customer" platform because it can do what other VoC vendors cannot do: provide a high response rate for customer feedback attempts. Receipt surveys, e-mail surveys and all the rest are terrible at getting an accurate readout of customer sentiment.

If this company is smart about the kind of database it keeps (creating a customer profile across different restaurants/ retail locations) it could be a tremendously powerful. These devices could be used in so many other locations for feedback. Restaurants are just the gateway.

Oh, and if anyone from E la Carte is reading, I'm available for a summer internship. :-)

A number of restaurants have successfully integrated games into meals. The example that comes most readily to mind is Buffalo Wild Wings in which you can play trivia games against other people in the restaurant. Granted I don't it would be wise to do this on your anniversary or something but in many situations it improves the social interaction rather, look at the popularity of pub trivia.

However the features of these devices that I'm most interested in is how they allow you to order food and pay for it right there. Having to split checks is a problem (admittedly I do feel kind of like a pussy complaining about it) that this device should completely eliminate.

If i get it right, E La Carte is more about augmenting the dining experience, rather than replacing the current one. It can open the door for "Dining Personalization" since eventually you may have a digital dining record of your own, or even your friends. Reviews, recommendations, or even keeping track of your calorie intake couldn't be much easier. Although E La Carte seems not supporting these yet, but without E La Carte these features weren't even possible.

Well said, guest recognition/personalization is where it's at -- with a consistent profile across restaurants that have E la Carte installed, people stand to gain from those features and more e.g realtime data on popular menu items ("likes"), dietary information etc. How many times have your browsed through the ginormous menus at cheesecake and didn't know what to order? With E la Carte, I can see myself trying a menu item recommended by a friend who's been to the restaurant before.

The games are social which enhances the dining experience of most people who use E la Carte tablets. And like with any technology, you have the freedom to not use it, or use just a subset of the available features. Some people are happy to split bills, pay for their meals (without having to wait or hand their credit cards to waiters) and have their receipts emailed to them, even if they didn't order through the device.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com