Green RFID automatic payment coffee cup is environmentally friendly and convenient
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With the increasing public awareness of environmental protection, some coffee shop customers now use reusable cups (also known as Smugs) embedded with RFID chips to buy beverages, which not only reduces the amount of paper cup waste, but also reduces the time to buy beverages. This system was developed by Chris Hallberg, who conceived the RFID Smug Cup when he was a student at Marquette University, and now works for El Salvador.
In 2008, inspired by a bioengineering course, Hallberg began to imagine an RFID coffee cup that could be used to purchase beverages. You only need to download a cash account, touch the coffee cup to a reader wired to the server, and the server stores the account. Related data. Hallberg promoted the idea to several local cafes and eventually won the interest of Stone Creek Coffee. Hallberg began to collaborate with Eric Resch, the owner of Stone Creek, to develop a scheme that can be successfully used in common cafes.
Pay for coffee with Smug cup
“We developed a system prototype on the dining table,” Hallberg said with a smile, emphasizing their goal to make this system as simple as possible. Although he considered designing a reader specifically for this application-it can be directly connected to the Internet or used as an independent service desk, but he and Resch finally chose a reader available in the market, which can be directly plugged into a computer or The cashier uses software developed by Hallberg to send label information to the store’s back-end system.
Coffee Shops. Me. Stone Creek has not yet adopted this system because the system is not compatible with the existing POS system in the store. However, he said that the store plans to adopt a new version of the Internet-based system in the fall.
Install the reader on the wall to read the coffee cup label
The Smug system uses a high-frequency 13.56 MHz circular RFID tag. The Mifare chip of the tag stores a unique ID code, which corresponds to the customer account in the store software. The label is about 1.5 inches in diameter. It is placed in the double-sided inner and outer hand cup. The outer layer of the paper cup is clear and transparent. You can see the label with the store logo and ID code printed on the front. The paper cup is produced by Vision USA, and the label is embedded between the inner and outer layers of the cup.
Customers can purchase Smug cups at participating coffee shops and download the money (usually $20 or $30) to an account. The data related to the account is stored in the store’s back-end system, including the stored amount and balance, as well as the customer’s name and contact information. An RFID reader (with an integrated antenna usually mounted on the wall) is connected to the store’s computer-based POS system. When the cup is within a few centimeters of the reader, the device obtains the ID code of the tag and forwards this information to the back-end system.
In Revive, customers can use cups to earn points and pay for personal drinks. Using smug cups to purchase beverages, the store can offer a 15-cent discount, and the cup selling price is 15 US dollars, of which 5 US dollars are pre-downloaded to the customer’s account. When buying a cup, a reader in the store reads the label (one is installed in a small window in the outer lane of the store, and the other is installed on the counter in the store). The employee then enters the personal name, contact information and deposit into the store software. Use the Smug cup to earn one point for every dollar spent, and 20 points can be exchanged for a free 12-ounce drink. The cup can also be used as a gift card for others.
When the customer taps the cup on the in-store reader, the user’s name and previous purchase records are displayed on the POS screen. In this way, store manager Lauren Somers said that customers can get more personalized services, such as helping employees understand the names of regular customers, saving shoppers’ drinking habits, and recording past drinking types.
Since November 2009, dozens of Waterways customers have adopted Smug cups. The system is still seen as a howling, the owner of Waterways said, although, he added that the system is working well. Customers can automatically pay for coffee and earn points.
“People are still trying to understand this concept,” Somers said. “When we explain that a cup is a gift, you only have to scan the cup and they will ask: what does it mean.” As more and more customers adopt this system, and others see them doing so, the system is promoted.
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