The technology in the vending community is expanding the ability for vending operators to enhance the user experience, deliver more payment options, keep machines running, and increase the efficiencies of operations.

Much of this new technology lies in the telemetry arena, enabling the use of credit cards and closed payment systems, along with alarm management and dynamic scheduling applications.  While there is a significant upside to having telemetry in your machines, until now, once you choose a vendor for dynamic scheduling or alarm management, you’re effectively locked in.

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An operator recently asked us what equipment he would need to monitor a 6 vending machine location. I wanted to share my response:

In order to remotely monitor 1 or more vending machines, you’ll need an MEI telemeter in each machine.  MEI is unique in only requiring 1 of the machines to use a cellular modem to call out with all the others networked to talk to the one machine calling out.  You can set the type of alarms you want to monitor and whether you want the machines to call out at a set time or as soon as an alarm is triggered.

Curbside polling, Pre-Kit forecasting, and Dynamic Scheduling each represent an attempt to automate the vending machine replenishment process in effort to increase efficiency, accuracy and profitability associated with machine replenishment activities. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone is going ‘green’ these days and vending customers are no exception.  They are looking for partners who can help their business move forward as a more responsible corporate citizen.  A vending operator can be a clear contributor to this ’sustainability’ effort by incorporating telemetry technology into how they run their operations.  Read the rest of this entry »

When telemeters are first deployed, they are configured for a specific location/environment. When they move, they have to be re-configured using a similar process. Read the rest of this entry »

I often get asked this question by vending operators, and the answer is “sometimes.” Read the rest of this entry »