I have a mail box. Occasionally, mail is inserted into it. Checking it is tedious, it frequently means I spend a little longer staring into an empty box than is optimal. Scanners are cheap. Build one into the mail slot so it scans incoming mail, and you get an email with a picture of each letter.

Henceforth, you can be secure in the knowledge that your box is empty... or happily slipping down to it to collect your contact lenses or whatnot.
-- bs0u0155, Dec 16 2013

Isn't that what the flags are for ? to tell the postie or customer there's letters waiting to be picked up.
-- FlyingToaster, Dec 16 2013


So you want to increase the amount of spam in my email? The majority of what goes into my mailbox is flyers, ads, junk advertisments of all kinds.
-- normzone, Dec 16 2013


I live in an apartment, there are no flags, I also don't like to go home unnecessarily. Going home instigates a whole raft of events that result in larger electricity bills.
-- bs0u0155, Dec 16 2013


Does your mail actually get put through a slot one piece at a time. On mine the mailman just opens a door and sticks in a handful, so a camera or scanner can't see if there's anything useful between the layers of junk mail.

Now if there was some mechanism to flip through the mail inside the box...

Around here we don't have flags for arriving mail either. Just a flag to tell the mailman that there is something to pick up. I was going to say that a system to indicate whether or not there was any mail at all would be useful, but I guess I get junk mail just about every day, so nevermind until that problem is fixed.
-- scad mientist, Dec 16 2013


You can solve junkmail, at least that addressed to you, simply by moving every year and moving countries ever 3-4 years.
-- bs0u0155, Dec 16 2013


I expected that this mail scanner device would have had a shredder attachment for junk mail and the ancillary smarts to tell the difference between junk and the good stuff.
-- AusCan531, Dec 16 2013


in an office setting an in box scanner could at least be a techie toy status symbol until you figure out what to use it for.

A scanner for an apartment block might save the postman the work of sorting the mail, just empty a bag into the machine "and let God sort 'em out." (Government Optical Dispersion) machine
-- popbottle, Dec 17 2013


//I expected that this mail scanner device would have had a shredder attachment for junk mail and the ancillary smarts to tell the difference between junk and the good stuff.//

Well, it sends you pictures in your email, so there's no reason you can't divert to a shredder. In fact it would even work for bank statements and the like, I've often already seen the same info online.
-- bs0u0155, Dec 17 2013


What would be the law regarding having two mail slots, one called "First class mail" going to your box and the other called "Bulk mail" going to a shredder?

Actually, never mind. Post men would make it a point to "Oopsie, put that mortgage payment notice in the wrong slot."

This is a great idea, but would the postman accept taking the time to stick each envelope one by one in the slot as would be necessary for a scanner to read it? These are government workers after all.
-- doctorremulac3, Dec 17 2013


And some kind of manacle that clamps on the postie's wrist, giving the scanner time to scan through all the junk, then rejecting the unwanted back into the aforementioned hand.
-- not_morrison_rm, Dec 17 2013



random, halfbakery