Power bank vending machine: two unattended builds.
A 6 slot card kiosk for a corridor and a 24 slot locker build for a station or a hospital. When nobody is behind a desk, the terminal does the talking and the route does the restocking.
Builds in this family (2)
Two unattended builds
The kiosk for a corridor, the locker for a lobby that is empty overnight.
Counter unit or vending kiosk
The same job, two very different operating models.
| Question | Counter unit | Vending kiosk |
|---|---|---|
| Who explains it | The staff | The screen and the signage |
| Start method | QR, app or card | Card, or QR on the larger builds |
| Site | A counter with staff | A corridor, a lobby, a station |
| Restock | During opening hours | A route, outside opening hours |
| Main risk | Staff do not offer it | Nobody notices a failed bay for a week |
A kiosk without a route is a cabinet that empties on Friday and stays empty until Monday. The route is part of the configuration, not an afterthought.
Unattended means the terminal does the talking
With no staff, every step has to be readable from a metre away: where to tap, what it costs, how to get the pack back. That is a signage and firmware question before it is a hardware one.
It also means the failure is silent. A bay that stops releasing packs at 22:00 is discovered by the guest, not by the operator, unless the software raises it. Ask what the alert looks like and who receives it.
- Start method
- Card terminal, or QR on larger builds
- Slots
- 6 on the card kiosk, 24 on the locker build
- Alerting
- Fault raised to the operator, not to the guest
- Route
- Who restocks, and on which days
- Ask for
- Terminal certification, alerting rules, bay parts
The route is the product
What separates a kiosk that earns from one that does not.
- Two cabinets on one route beat one cabinet twice the size, because one visit restocks both.
- Restock outside opening hours, or the visit costs a staff member and a conversation.
- A named fault owner, with the phone number on the cabinet.
- Cleaning on the same visit: a kiosk with fingerprints on the glass reads as broken.
- A monthly count of packs in, packs out, and packs missing.
Ask for the terminal certification list for your market before the order. A kiosk with a terminal the local acquirer will not board is a cabinet with no way to take money.
Before the order
Four questions a kiosk order should answer first.
- Which acquirer, and which terminal is certified for it in your market.
- Which route, on which days, by whom, and at what hour.
- Which signage, in which language, at what reading distance.
- Which alert reaches the operator when a bay stops releasing packs.
- Slots
- 6 or 24 locker
- Form
- Freestanding
- Start
- Card or QR
- Ask for
- Terminal certification, alerting rules, route plan
Other formats
Send the site, get a written configuration.
Venue type, busiest hour and destination market is enough. The reply is a build, a slot count and the specification sheet for each line item.