Remote access vending

[Eddie Temple]

Hi,
We have a project we are evaluating currently that requires software that can os ablr to receive and send data to and from with remote GSM linked equipment on 100's of UK sites. Think Vendings machines but its not.

Is there any software that is designed for this purpose that we are able to customise for our own required specific requirements ?

Many thanks

Edited by Eddie Temple on Wednesday 3rd March 13:41

[skwdenyer]

Eddie Temple said:

Hi,
We have a project we are evaluating currently that requires software that can os ablr to receive and send data to and from with remote GSM linked equipment on 100's of UK sites. Think Vendings machines but its not.

Is there any software that is designed for this purpose that we are able to customise for our own required specific requirements ?

Many thanks

Edited by Eddie Temple on Wednesday 3rd March 13:41

A common way to do this sort of thing with any degree of reliability is to have the remote station (in this case the vending machine) periodically make a call to a webservice endpoint to (a) poll for new data to download and/or (b) push new data up to the server.

Even if there's no other data to upload/download, this can give you a "heartbeat" and a periodic status update; you can then build dashboards, watchdog systems, etc. to alert you to any machines going "off grid."

To do it the other way around can be quite horrid - you don't want to be "calling" the remote station, but to poll it over IP requires that it has a permanently-open GSM data connection.

Even then, you need to think very hard about the design of the system and test extensively to deal with situations like failed connections, failed uploads/downloads, and so on. The actual data exchange part is very simple.

How you tackle this problem in reality is going to depend upon the hardware you already have, and your level of expertise You might end up with a "piggy back" board in the machines, sharing a common file system, and just responsible for the comms side (read and upload log files, poll for and download new config files, etc.).

I'm running a project right now that has to upload data to a server endpoint over a mobile network. There is a great deal to get right, and a whole range of failure modes And, no, I'm not pitching for the work: (a) I don't do this sort of thing as a consultancy gig, and (b) I'm too busy!

A quick Google turns up these guys https://www.nayax.com/ about whom I know nothing more than that they offer a hardware and software telemetry solution aimed at somewhere close to your market. I'd be surprised if there is a software-only solution, but I'm no expert on vending machine tech

[fat80b]

How much software are you wanting to write? and probably more importantly what is your hardware plan?

Have you already got the hardware bit done?
If not, do you want something off the shelf to interface to your machine or are you prepared to design some hardware yourself?

The answer to the hardware question will probably drive the shape of the software answer.

If the hardware isn't decided yet, then one of the simplest routes might be to use something like https://www.electricimp.com/ as a starting point. This would allow you to easily retrofit an existing device with an end to end cellular IoT solution.

[48k]

OP my company has developed a couple of software projects to send/receive data with mobile devices (vehicle trackers fitted with Sim cards) so not a million miles away from what you're trying to do. PM me if you want to chat.