The Dream

[rclark]

I know this will not happen any time soon - but it would be a great point to get to.

THE PROBLEM:
The Chillispot/Worldspot model is based on tickets being managed off site, but printed 'locally' by some manager person. That is a good model for many cases. It is not a good model for a busy cafe that wants to give QUICK tickets (free or paid) with every coffee/cake.

THE COMPETITION
Netgear (I think) sells a Point of Sale (POS) box that is expensive - but does everything in one place. The seller presses a button on the printer and out comes a ticket. The printer is connected to the AP. This is a good model for Cafe's.

THE DREAM
The WRT has an IP printer connected to one of the LAN ports. Thermal Printer has buttons (A, B, C, D). Staff press 'A', out comes a 30 min ticket, B = 60 min, etc. (A,B,C,D defined in the WRT admin). The ticket comes from WorldSpot. This means more firmware for the WRT and printer of course.

[WorldSpot]

Why don't you just print 100 tickets on a standard printer? (when the printing feature will be ready of course  )
When you have 10 left, just reprint any number of ticket you want.

Tickets have no absolute expiration time
They can expire after the first connection.

[rclark]

That model will not sell into a busy cafe.

The cafe manager will have to go into the back room, and print them - assuming he has a PC/printer back there. The staff serving the coffee on the counter wil not want to do that. Maybe not even allowed to use the office PC.

You are probably thinking - Jeesh! How hard is it to print a few tickets on the office PC! For you and I - we would do it. We are computer savvy. A cafe may be scared of his PC - and just wants to sell coffee. These people hate technology. The 'printer on the counter' solution appeals to them.

But - as I said this is a dream. I am NOT proposing it be done now. I love the progress so far as it is a good model for small hotels etc. Maybe an idea for Version 10 of this project.

[WorldSpot]

 
If the cafe is busy, or doesn't have a (very cheap) printer, why not printing tickets every months or every year for them. You can print thousand of them if you need to.
The price of your printer will certainly be more than one portable pc + a cheap printer.

The problem I have with such development, is that it is very hardware speicific.
You could say that it is possible to connect a standard printer to usb equiped hotspot routers, but there is not standard buttons to trigger the print.

[jshope]

This would be a nice to have, but there are plenty of wireless outfits that will sell you a system and accompanying printer to print tickets at the counter on demand. They are expensive and proprietary and the tickets as far as I've seen are very plain and boring, no company logo, or text, etc. Those systems are made for businesses that want it that simple

I'm hoping that once the ticket printing is done, it is just going to be a matter of using a printer and paper slicer for a few minutes and having a pile of custom designed tickets to hand out.  They could have a mention of a sale or 5% off next purchase, Quote of the day, anything to help people remember you and your business and to get them to come back.

~jim