Ugh, orange fingers —

Amazon tells Super Bowl viewers to look for Prime Air drone delivery “soon”

Branded drone seen floating through window; fine print in ad tempers expectations.

Amazon tells Super Bowl viewers to look for Prime Air drone delivery “soon”
Amazon

Amazon's trend of running multiple, super-short commercials for its voice-activated Echo device continued during Sunday's broadcast of Super Bowl LI. The last of the company's three Echo spots included a surprise cameo: an Amazon delivery drone, described to viewers as a "Prime Air" delivery. A suggestive statement, spoken in its devices' "Alexa" voice, played as the drone appeared: "Look for delivery soon."

The ad shows a woman frowning at a man who is eating branded tortilla chips, then using her voice to place an order for her snacks of choice—and clarifying that she wants the order "from Prime Air." Soon afterward, a branded drone is seen hovering just outside a home's window. At the bottom of the screen, Amazon offers a fine-print disclaimer: "Prime Air is not available in some states (or any really). Yet."

Amazon's only publicly announced commercial trial for Prime Air began this past December utilising a single distribution centre in Cambridge, England. How soon those may start in the USA is unclear, however, though the high-profile placement of the hardware in a Super Bowl ad, and its real-world example of how shoppers could easily request it, suggest Amazon is ramping up its efforts.

The Federal Aviation Administration approved rules for commercial drone flights in June, but those rules only include approval for "line-of-sight' drone operation, as opposed to the kind of automated or centralized drone-flight operations required by a shipping center such as Prime Air. Last summer in the UK, however, Amazon struck a deal with the Civil Aviation Authority so that it could test the drones without line of sight.

This year's Super Bowl broadcast employed drones of its own during the game's halftime show. Super Bowl LI's Lady Gaga concert was bookended with footage of light-mounted drones flying in the Houston sky and forming images of the American Flag, Intel's logo, and the halftime sponsor Pepsi's logo. However, because of FAA restrictions regarding drones flying over the game's venue, those drone-related shots did not actually take place during the concert.

Channel Ars Technica