Coca-Cola to roll out contactless drinks vending machines across the US

Coca-Cola Freestyle contactless mobile pour vending machine and user
CONTACTLESS: Customers will be able to order and pay for their drinks directly from their smartphone

All 52,000 Coca-Cola Freestyle soda fountains across the USA will allow customers to order and pay for their drinks directly from their mobile phone by the end of 2020.

The company began rolling out its ‘mobile pour’ contactless solution for the Freestyle dispensers in July following a successful pilot in restaurants in Atlanta, Georgia.

More than 30,000 dispensers have been equipped with the touch-free system in the US since its launch, using technology co-developed with cloud services provider Amazon Web Services.

Once the US rollout is complete, Coca-Cola says it will begin integrating the system into Freestyle machines worldwide.

A video produced by Coca-Cola shows how the service works:

“The technology behind mobile pour makes the experience so simple and so fast. A common misconception is that everything is happening locally,” Coca-Cola Freestyle’s Michael Connor says in an Amazon blog post.

“What’s actually happening is a series of signals and steps taking place in the cloud — verifying that each phone is connected to the right machine, only in-stock beverages are shown as flavour options, and that pours start and stop with the touch of a button on the phone screen. All this needs to happen in near-real time.”

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