Category: custom vending machines

Vending Machines Doling Out Health Advice to Kids

Posted on by John Van Horn

Apparently children aren’t inundated enough with health advice from their schools, parents, and their government. Now custom vending machines are popping up dishing out advice too. And maybe that’s a good thing since many children and parents alike still don’t seem to understand the importance of healthy food choice. In Utah, the Intermountain Healtcare setup fake vending machines in elementary schools. The machines are filled with fake snacks that do not dispense. Nor will it rob your child of his lunch money.

Instead, when the buttons are pushed, the machine offers bits of wisdom to promote healthy eating and turn your child’s viewpoints around when it comes to snacking. Although said in a fun way, you can’t ignore the scary advice of the machine, “I’m a vending machine and can’t move without someone’s help. Keep buying food like this and we’ll have that in common.” Funny, but true. The purpose is to create a fun and interactive way to tell your kids to stop eating those chocolate bars and to lay off the cans of soda.

It’s a clever idea and maybe we’ll soon see these custom vending machines giving health advice to kids popping up over the rest of the country. The more innovative ways we can teach children about making good food decisions, the better. Take a look at the machine in action.

Cigarette Vending Machines Banned Across the Pond

Posted on by John Van Horn

retail vendingAcross the pond in Northern Ireland a new legislation has passed to ban cigarette vending machines in an attempt to limit the amount of young smokers. The ban will be put into effect in a few months (March 1), hoping to save thousands of lives in the country. You may be carded when going into a shop, but children and other young people can easily purchase their cigarettes from vending machines around the country.

Despite going into effect in a few months, it will be at least three years before other new laws will stop small shops from openly displaying tobacco products. Restrictions on larger stores will be introduced by the end of next year. A survey in Northern Ireland in 2010 revealed that 14% of smokers between the ages of 11 and 16 purchased their packs from vending machines. Most children are unaware of the long-term health effects. A ban on the vending machines is already in place in England and will soon be in affect in Wales.

With all the restrictions in America and now other countries, it will be interesting to see just how far the government goes to preventing the sale of cigarettes and if tobacco companies will find a way to retaliate.

Boston Now Dispensing Bicycle Helmets

Posted on by John Van Horn

Intelligent Dispensing Solutions aren’t the only ones coming up with clever custom vending machines that dispense more than just candy bars and soda. Last summer the city of Boston introduced the Hubway, a bicycle sharing system with 60 solar-powered stations and 600 bikes. Both tourists and local residents loved the idea, with over 140,000 trips in just four months. However, the city soon realized that only 30% of riders wore helmets.

Now cue some super smart undergrads at MIT who created a prototype product known as the HelmetHub which is a vending machine that dispenses bicycle helmets. It also features a touchscreen similar to the ones at the other kiosks available at the Hubway. It even draws power from solar panels and occupies half the space of typical vending machines. The helmets are fairly standard and will fit most head sizes.

The students are hoping they can be both sale and rental kiosks for around $8 and riders will be able to return them for a partial refund. A beta version should be ready for testing as early as next summer. The vending machine is a convenient and great way to promote safety. Maybe we’ll one day see these vending machines popping up in other cities where people prefer a bike over a car.

Free Wi-fi at Vending Machines

Posted on by John Van Horn

custom vending machinesJapan has developed quite a reputation for their vending machines. They just seem to have the weirdest and most random things available for purchase. And that is not a bad thing, by any means. On the contrary, it’s innovative and refreshing. But besides purchasing fresh fish and bicycles from a vending machine, you can now enjoy free Wi-fi! Asahi Soft Drinks developed a vending machine that not only dispenses soft drinks, but a wireless signal at absolutely no cost to the consumer.

The signal is good within a 50 meter radius and you can use it on your smartphone, tablet computer, laptop, or any other gadget that you have in tow. However, you can only be continuously connected to the signal for 30 minutes at a time. Once you get kicked off though, you can log right back on. All you have to do is handle an onset of annoying ads from local businesses after the initial login.

Asahi is hoping these nifty free wi-fi vending machines will expand their business by drawing in customers. I mean if you’re going to be sitting there for quite some time surfing the web, you might work up a thirst. They plan on releasing 1,000 machines within the next year and 10,000 within the next 5.

Studying Shoppers with the iSample

Posted on by John Van Horn

custom vending machinesIt seems vending machines are doing a lot more than just selling candy bars and soda these days. Kraft is taking their vending machines to a whole new level by using them to study how consumers shop. The iSample’s goal is to tailor the product to the shopper in mind. Kraft teamed up with Intel on this project using an optical sensor to view the shape of the face. It then performs calculations based on the measurements of a person’s face, such as the distance between the eyes and nose.

All this information is used to determine the gender of the shopper and to place them in an age bracket. It’s done within a matter of seconds. Currently they are using these sales studying smart vending machines to do a trial of Temptations, a jelly-based dessert. There are only two machines right now, one in Chicago and another in New York. A director at Kraft stated, “Our ultimate goal is to bring value to both our retailers and our brands by better understanding consumer engagement with our products.”

It’s always cool to see new technology being implemented in what was once a simple snack machine. This is the kind of focus that IDS loves to see in custom vending machines!

Office Vending Machines Like You’ve Never Seen Before

Posted on by John Van Horn

Typically when one thinks about office vending machines, there is the assumption that it’s full of soda, water, and snacks. It’s the food you need to combat the 3 pm lull. But IDS is looking to revolutionize the vending machine business. Instead of candy and soda in their office vending machines, they’re filled with useful items like notepads, pens, scissors, and staplers.

But shouldn’t these items be automatically provided for employees? Yes there should be certain items you give to employees, but we all know there are many people who enjoy pillaging office supplies. Office vending machines are a way to curb this problem and to have better control over the budget. Office supplies aren’t cheap and depending on how quickly you go through them and how many employees you have, the costs can be enormous. But if you’re forcing people to only take what they need, you’ll be amazed at how much money you will save and how much longer those supplies will actually last.

What really makes these office supply vending machines cool is the inventory report feature. The reports will always tell you what needs to be restocked and will keep track of all items purchased.

Vending Machines for the Gym

Posted on by John Van Horn

The wonderful aspect of Intelligent Dispensing Solutions is that they are not solely focused on food and drink vending machines. While that’s still a popular design here in America, they realize that there are more items people need readily available other than food. The company has already developed a custom vending machine that can be used in gyms which allows members to simply swipe their membership cards to receive beverages, snacks, and equipment. Anything they purchase is then billed on their monthly statement from the gym.

Besides offering sports drinks and healthy snacks like protein bars, you can purchase goggles and swimming caps for the pool, replacement shoelaces, and other items you may need while working out. That’s incredibly convenient, especially if the gym isn’t close by your home. Now you don’t have to turn around and go back home for these items. They are right at your disposal.

These gym vending machines are already being used at 123 Fit, Anytime Fitness, World Gym, and Snap Fitness. But this certainly isn’t the end. They are working with more gyms to let this fantastic idea be at everyone’s fingertips. What would you like to see in a fitness vending machine? Anything is possible with Intelligent Dispensing Solutions.

School Vending Machines Keep You Focused

Posted on by John Van Horn

I remember the good ol’ college days. Although the days were certainly shorter than when I was in high school, I was just as exhausted and overworked as ever. I was running to work in between classes, staying up late writing papers, and attempting to read an entire novel in two days. Classes were certainly longer, sometimes nearly 3 hours long. It was often difficult to get a good night’s sleep. But instead of relying on drinks with tons of caffeine, I just made sure I had something in my system!

Food gives us the energy we need, especially when we make a healthy food choice. That’s why school vending machines can be a good thing for kids. Sometimes the lunch period is just too far away or we don’t have time in between classes to take a food break. By offering foods in school vending machines with plenty of nutritional value, we can give kids the energy they need to stay focused. When tummies are grumbling, it’s hard to think about anything else, not to mention you just don’t feel like you have the energy to make it through the next 40 minutes. Granola bars, fruit, juice, all these will keep sleep attacks at bay and help us to perform better.

My Feelings on Vending Machines

Posted on by John Van Horn

In my office vending machines there is so much to taste. I try not to taste the same things every day because I don’t like getting into habits of eating the same thing all the time, although it is relatively easy to do so. I wish that I had my own private vending machines that I could use my own currency for, with a picture of my own face on the front and an eagle on the back, since my last name means eagle in German and I still take pride in being an American.

The first vending machines were built to dispense holy water by Heron of Alexandria. He was a famous engineer of his time, back in the first century AD. If only he knew what his invention would become two thousand years later.

I love hearing the machine work, the way it releases its products onto its floor and the little doggy door that allows me to reach in and take. When I was little I always tried to get my arm up into the vending machine to take an extra candy bar for free — I was trying to steal — but thankfully I hurt my arm once and I learned my lesson.

The Freedom of Custom Vending Machines

Posted on by John Van Horn

custom vending machinesCustom vending machines have a lot to offer. I’ve seen packets of organic jerky selling for $9 in vending machines in an artist’s loft. Hard to believe that artists can afford to pay so much for dried meat but they are stubborn and you can bet that when they get a craving nothing will stop them.

It makes me wish that custom vending machines sold filet mignon and buttered mashed potatoes, ready for the microwave, but it would be impossible (wouldn’t it?) to keep filet mignon in a vending machine nice and hot. Although, don’t they have those custom vending machines with a kitchen in back, serving out fresh food each time someone chooses an item? They’re especially good for late-night dining, because honestly, who wants to have a service transaction when you’re six beers deep and it’s four o’clock in the morning?

Custom vending machines offer versatile retail options. I would put ping pong balls and crabcakes and bandannas and peanuts and salt and vinegar potato chips and sushi and cherry Coke and bicycle grease and lip balm and apples and gum in my vending machine, if I had my own. But, you know most people prefer the traditional stuff.