Drone Bartender Design Pours Up Success

“So a guy walks into a bar”

Or if you’re Herman Haydin, a bar or at least a bartender flies up to you.

Haydin, a student designer at Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture in the Ukraine, has looked into the future of home appliances and envisioned an indoor airspace laden with hovering hot toddies and gyrating gin-and-tonics.

Yura, Haydin’s conceptual flying robotic bartender that “mixes and then fills your drinks by swooping above the heads of the crowd,” has tended its way to the short list of the Electrolux Design Lab. The competition, open to undergrad and grad design students worldwide, challenges designers to create a concept that is relevant to the time and raises questions about what design will be like in the future.”

If Haydin and his company YankoDesign have their way, Yura will define a new era in electronic bartending. 

Although Yura is only an alcoholic concept at this point, the design is a rather sleek quadcopter that sports what appear to be twin spouts designed to dispense and mix a variety of cocktails including coffee, tea or juice (a smart cartridge inside Yura can heat or cool the beverage). Using voice or smartphone commands, Yura will deliver the right drinks to the right customers. And, yes, Yura offers Wifi. 

It’s not clear from the conceptual specs exactly how Yura will fill up its tanks with so many tasty ingredients; however, Haydin promises the tiny tavern keeper will be able to mix “together the perfect measure of ingredients in order to create your perfect drink. (It’s also programmed to mix drinks with an appropriate amount of calories, if you’re feeling particularly health conscious).”

Yura may not be able to offer witty banter or profound life lessons, ElectronicProducts.com points out that “while it might not be able to actually cart you home from the bar, it can at least call the cab for you.  It can also download software and check your email, two services not commonly conducted by your traditional human bartenders.”

Drinks, drones and delivery seem to be brewing up the perfect storm in hospitality innovation these days. In 2013, drones delivered beers at the Oppikoppi music festival in South Africa. According to International Business Times, concert-goers were ecstatic to be able to “order a beer from a smartphone app and have it delivered by a drone flying about 50 feet in the air. The beer drones would locate the user with their smartphone’s GPS and drop the beer with a parachute.” Drones have also been used in other venues to deliver champagne and cocktails.  

So, the next time you’re at a party and an airborne array of shots zooms by your head, you’ve probably not had too much to drink, you’re simply living in the age of Yura.