Hero of Alexandria invented the first vending machine in 10 AD. Even though it has changed a lot from now on, I think vending machines should keep up with the internet age. That's why I started a project. In fact, there were things in the background that puzzled me about this for years. Starting the project accelerated with the bright idea that came to my mind while talking with my colleague.
This idea, which we thought was inventive, provided the following:
- Shopping experience with your mobile phone without touching the vending machine.
- Does not require any special app installation, compatible with all smartphones.
- Ordinary ecommerce shopping experience with the products inside the vending machine.
- Checkout with your credit card or your favorite payment methods like Stripe, PayPal Apple Pay
- The vending machine does not need to be connected to the internet!!!
- Cost effective vending machine design.
- Possibility to manage stock and various analytical data from the cloud even though the device is not connected to the internet.
- Works like a marketplace. Vending machine operators do not need to integrate any payment system. One cloud solution will serve all the operators worldwide. Operators will sign in to the cloud service, define their machines, products, and the planograms, generate the machine QR Code and stick it on their machines and start to operate immediately. Their earnings will be transferred to their bank account.
- Opportunity to make personal discounts and campaigns by promoting membership with awards.
Operation flow:
Security:
The operational security is provided by "Public/Private Key Cryptography" The Vending machine control board has a separate crypto ic which holds device key pairs. While defining their vending machine in the cloud, operators enters the public key of the machine in the definition field. The machine private key is secretly stays in the machine crypto ic. After then the QR Code returned to the customer's phone encrypted with these keys.