Instacart’s smart cart helps you navigate to the sauce that’s on sale

If you always have trouble finding that specific pasta sauce like I do, there’s a smart grocery shopping cart that can map it out for you. Instacart’s Caper Cart, which has a touchscreen and payment terminal up front where you’d normally seat your toddler or play Jenga with your produce, now has a new store map system that can help navigate you to products you’re looking for, on-sale items, and even send you on fetch quests that can land you savings. And there’s ads on them, too.

The Caper Carts have been in limited operation in select grocery stores for several years; when you drop in products, the cart automatically tallies them up on the screen (except for specific types of produce) thanks to several cameras, sensors, and a scale built into the cart. The Caper Cart’s big sell is that you can import your shopping list from the Instacart app by scanning a QR code on the cart and check out from the cart without waiting in line.

In a demo with Caper Cart’s cofounder Ahmed Beshry, he showed us a new “gamified” feature: when you add an item to your cart, it can show you the location of a second item you can grab to unlock more discounts. The map on the cart showed me a dotted-line trail of where to go next, and as the cart moved around, the map kept me updated with its real-time position — a bit like when I’m walking toward a gym in Pokémon Go.

The new live map on the Caper Cart seems more useful than just the aisle letters and numbers the cart provided before. But how does the cart know where it is? I asked if it used special beacons or mmWave positioning, but Beshry said the company couldn’t share how the tracking works. He did say they create a 3D map of the inside of the store, kind of like the process of a robot vacuum mapping out your apartment.

The cart can also fling you into a “treasure hunt” to find flash deals for items on the map. And to keep you invested in the whole digital in-person cart experience in a world where Instacart primarily delivers groceries, the cart will reward you with credits for repeat visits by running a “shopping streak.”

Sometimes, you do need dip with your chips — and the cart will happily tell you that they go together — but other times, you don’t need or want to be told to go fetch a specific company’s dip. And though I would like help finding the pasta sauce that’s on sale, it could be overwhelming to get caught up in generated recommendations and ads on my grocery cart.

Still, a cart that can figure out what I put in it, where to find things on my list, give me instant coupons, and let me pay without waiting in the self-checkout line is a future I’m willing to try out.

Actually finding one of these carts may be a treasure hunt in itself. While the company says it’s “tripled our Caper Cart footprint” in the last six months and will have “thousands” of them soon, it doesn’t say exactly where you can find them. Markets to check include Bristol Farms, Fairway Market, The Fresh Grocer, Geissler’s Supermarket, Kroger, McKeever’s Market & Eatery, Price Chopper, Schnucks, and ShopRite in the US, as well as Aldi in Austria.