Q: What is the Cents Penny?
A: It is a touchscreen device that is attached to the front of your washers and dryers. It allows your customers to use a credit card to start a load of laundry. The Penny is a machine mounted user-facing device that provides business insights, remote machine control, and user interaction to washers and dryers. Using the Penny and the Cents business manager dashboard, a laundromat can remotely start a machine, access runtime insights, and provide users a means of paying for and starting a machine via credit card or mobile app.
Technical answer:
User-facing device with touchscreen, EMV reader, and non-secure NFC antenna. Communicates to the cloud via WiFi/MQTT. Controls machine via GPIO (pulse) and serial. Powered via machine power (12-24 VAC/VDC). Mounted on the front of a laundry machine for accessibility.
Q: How big is the Penny?
A: 3.5in x 3.5inx1.5in
Q: Does the Penny take all credit cards?
A: It accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover.
Q: How does it connect to the internet?
A: It uses your store’s wifi via a built-in wifi antenna
Q: What if my wifi is weak?
A: We will be sending you a Ubiquiti Dream Machine wifi router and Ubiquiti Access Points with the Pennies. They will broadcast a strong wifi signal that will ensure all the Pennies have maximum up-time.
Q: What kind of payment methods do you take?
A: Your customer can swipe or dip (EMV) their credit card
Q: Do you take Google Pay and Apple Pay?
A: This is on our product roadmap, and isn’t currently available
Q: How is the Penny installed?
A: We will help you connect with your distributor to facilitate the installation. A distributor will bring the Pennies to your store and install them.
Q: How long does installation take?
A: It can take between 10-15 minutes to install one Penny. If you would like to keep coin, then we will most likely need to drill mounting holes into your machine. Depending on your machine, we may have mounting brackets available that will allow you to replace your coin drop and avoid drilling mounting holes.
Q: What do I do if a Penny isn’t working?
A: Submit a help request with our Support team here.
Q: How are payouts handled?
A: Worldnet Payments is the integrated payments gateway we use for all payouts.
Q: Are there any basic troubleshooting steps I can take if a Penny goes down?
A: Power cycle the washer or dryer, as the Penny draws its power from the machine. You can also restart your wifi router if it’s a connectivity issue. Most of the time these two steps will resolve the issue. See the troubleshooting article here.
Q: How will reporting on sales work?
A: You’ll be able to run a wide variety of reports on the Cents Business Manager dashboard, which can be accessed anywhere in the world from a browser.
Q: Can the Penny control all aspects of the load being done?
A: The Penny is just for accepting payment. The customer will still need to manually decide what type of load to do, and press “Start”.
Q: What kinds of machines does the Penny currently support?
A: Right now we support all Alliance machines. We are working on being able to integrate with Dexter, Electrolux, and Maytag soon.
Q: How do I get more Pennies?
A: Reach out to your account manager who will be happy to help!
Q: How am I billed for the Pennies?
A: Please speak with your distributor about this.
Q: Is there a warranty for the Pennies?
A: Yes
Q: Is the Penny PCI Compliant?
A: Yes