Coinless – A retrofit kit for enabling cashless payments on coin-operated vending machines
In-house product development is not the core business of CSA Engineering AG. Rather, we are more concerned with the methods and technologies required to facilitate it. For example, during a workshop, we used the Lean Progress Model to look for potential product ideas. The result was Coinless, a retrofit system for cashless payments for “outdated” coin payment systems such as those found in children’s carousels, car wash facilities and many other places. We have now implemented this system in the form of a minimum viable product (MVP).
The Lean Progress Model asks questions about the following six areas: problem, solution, potential, viability, scalability and traction, and uses suitable tools to aid the development of a lean and customer-centric product innovation
Our result was Coinless. It solves the problem that many vending machines still only accept coins for payment, but many people often do not carry cash anymore and therefore cannot use the services of the vending machine. Coin-operated vending machines often have a very long service life and replacing them completely rarely makes sense. This is where Coinless comes in. Our retrofit kit means that the long-lasting machines can continue to be used with the added option of cashless payments.
The Coinless system consists of 3 main components:
Coinless embedded payment system
This is the retrofit kit for the coin-operated vending machine. It is an embedded device that is connected to the machine and triggers the service when the payment is made.
Coinless application system
The Coinless application is the logic of the system and enables the vending machines to be managed and used.
Coinless IoT system
The IoT system is responsible for transmitting and processing the collected data and device configurations via LoRa and TTN networks.
Before the Coinless system can be used, some set-up is required. This includes installing it onto the machine, recording the products and affixing a device-specific QR code to the machine. These details are not discussed further in this article, as they are highly application-specific.
But how does Coinless itself work and, in particular, how are orders placed after the system has been installed?
The customer scans the vending machine's QR code with their mobile phone and is directed to the corresponding machine website.
The desired product can be selected on the website and paid for via an external payment service such as Twint. Once the payment has been made, the customer receives a QR code back, which functions as their ticket for the machine and is displayed on their phone's screen.
When the received QR code is “presented” to the Coinless embedded payment system, the QR code is read by the camera, checked and, once successfully verified, activates the machine.
Coinless makes use of state-of-the-art technologies within the fields of embedded systems and applications.
A dedicated IoT electronics board manufactured by CSA is used as embedded hardware. The STM32L4 microcontroller and the LR1110 LoRa chip by Semtech form the core of the board. The embedded software is based on CSA’s C++ building block framework. By encapsulating tasks in building blocks with a defined interface, this creates a clear structure, reduces dependencies and thus lays the foundation for reliable, maintainable and easily expandable code.
The application page can be divided into two sections. The frontend represents the interface with the user and is implemented using Angular. Using Nx allows for a highly modular push architecture, enabling the code to be shared efficiently between different applications/functionalities. The backend works in the background. It represents the logic of the system and is implemented using .NET C# MicroServices and Dapr. The entire application is deployed to users via an Azure DevOps pipeline on an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster.
Coinless was developed by CSA Engineering AG in the form of a minimum viable product (MVP) and currently serves to demonstrate the various technologies. The concepts developed can also be used as a blueprint for the next customer application. The advantage of this is that it allows for well-known technologies and extensive experience to be built on further, helping to bring about rapid results. Of course, there are also various extension options to the MVP, such as the implementation of a complete IoT connection, data analytics and scalable vending machine management. These and other aspects are being developed and integrated into the system incrementally.
Interested in finding out more about the Coinless application, the technologies used and our expertise?
Our sales team would be happy to put you in touch with one of our experts and advise you on suitable support options for your project.