What they see is something completely new, and different. What I see is something old that’s new again. Which is it? Or is it really either? It’s kind of a ‘Back to the Future and Back again’ situation…
A VenHub – from the robot side: While conventional vending
machines can offer, maybe, a dozen product choices,
a VenHub can offer hundreds or thousands…
Once upon a time there was a big-city restaurant craze known as the Automat. It came about a means of serving more folks on a walk-up and take-out basis. Just like the so-called Resto of the future, the idea was based on what they called ‘automation’ back in the 1920s. Nevertheless , the concept lasted into the 1990s, when the last known automat, in New York City, finally closed.
How it worked
Many-compartmented walls displayed hundreds of different plates of food behind glass windows. Diners could patroll the rectangular central couet of the resto and consider their choices. When they had decided, they simply dropped some coins in the slot adjacent to the window which displayed what they wanted. The window popped up, and the diner would remove their purchase and move on.
At the same time, on the other side of the compartmented wall, a small army of uniformed women shuttled between the kitchen and the service area constantly restocking empty compartments from the back.
Horn and Hardart, who invented the Automat, pretty much monopolized the business at first, claiming 88 locations. and proclaimed ascendancy through the ensuing decades, also officially ended the era closing their last location in 1991.
How it works now
Flack back to the present… The basic concept behind VenHub‘s AI-powered 24/7 smart stores have quietly opened in three locations around Los Angeles, to little fanfare. And very little comment from consumers. Curiously, folks seems to just accept that hte robot-nased store-kiosks have arrives.
They consist of ‘sealed’ storage spaces roamed by a couple of robotic, AI-directed ‘facilitators’ that seek out items customers order on digital screens, and place them on perambulating service trays. When customers are finished ordering and the machines have completed what machine culture folks call the ‘fulfilment’ phase of the purchase, the trays are presented to customers via contactless-type slots. Customers pay digitally at some point along the way.
And the slots will remind some folks in the audience of the windows in Automat service walls.
Install them anywhere…
While VenHubs need not necessarily be enclosed in glass for protection from the weather (especially in locations such as the pilot region, LA), or to afford customers such comfort and convenience, they can be.
“We are seeing demand from cities, municipalities, transportation hubs, events and sports venues, location owners and operators, and global organizations and brands. Everyone is looking for retail solutions that are reliable, efficient, and designed for today,” said Shahan Ohanessian, Founder & CEO of VenHub.
My take
While they don’t absolutely require physical or environment protection, I wonder about the advi-sability of giving them security protection. The whole concept may be too new, as yet, to even esti-mate the potential risk… But if nefarious crooks will bring in forklifts to steal entire autotellers full of cash, how far might they go to drive away with VenHub robots to sell on the Black Market? – As suave Richard Blaine asks Ilsa at the end of Casablanca, with an air of inevitability: Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon…
And will VenHubs steal jobs from humans? Yes, when the dust has settled and the numbers have been tallied. But like the VenHubs themselves will use robots to fulfill customer orders, so will the VenHubs themselves will need someone – humans, a least for the foreseeable future – to replenish sales stocks, and ensure the machines’ continuing functionality under 24/7 day-to-day use.
Sister Erin points out, it will be no different than when conventional vending machines first deployed in environments that originally required humans to staff conventional retail setups.
Okay… Here we go… Forward! Into the Past!
~ Maggie J.