Description
A Brisbane health-tech startup approached us through our distributor, Automatic Vending Specialist, with an ambitious idea: deploy wall-mounted vending machines in public restrooms and other venues to give women free feminine hygiene and sanitary products, with the service funded by on-screen advertising rather than the end user. They arrived with little more than an Alibaba product listing, and needed a partner with prior experience to guide them through hardware, firmware and a cloud platform.
Starting from that supplier listing and the product’s packaging dimensions, we engineered the machine’s target capacity and specified a custom wall-mount unit. We kept the mounting method deliberately generic — suitable for both brick and drywall — so installers retain flexibility across very different venues, and supplied the engineering drawings for the mounting backplate. When the client revised the product dimensions mid-build, we re-pitched the dispensing coils and sourced a fresh batch from a local coil factory in the same city, turning the new coils around within 48 hours to keep the build on schedule.
Because the business model depends on advertising, each machine carries a 32-inch Android touchscreen capable of smooth, high-quality video, turning every unit into an advertising surface as well as a dispenser. We delivered the firmware, built five prototype machines, and crated and freighted them to Sydney. On-site, the machines were installed using our mounting drawings and installation guidance — the physical install was carried out locally rather than by us — ready for service.
The cloud server and a questionnaire system that gates free dispensing — letting the client verify eligibility and capture usage insights while keeping the product free at the point of use — were built by our Australian software partner, Vending on Track. With hardware, firmware and software all coming together, the client had a complete, deployable solution from a single coordinated team.
The five prototypes gave the startup the momentum to prove the concept. With our ongoing support they went on to secure funding from top institutional investors, then refined the specification for a lighter machine and ordered fifty more units to roll out across additional venues. By December 2025 the entire project — including the cloud-server source code — had been handed over to the client, who built an in-house engineering team to keep expanding it. The hardware, customisation and five prototype machines (including shipping) came to about US$20,000, with the software and cloud platform a further US$20,000 — roughly US$40,000 all up.
Read the full story, including the project timeline, on our blog →
Project highlights
- Custom wall-mount machine with generic brick-and-drywall mounting for installer flexibility
- 32-inch Android touchscreen for high-quality advertising playback
- Firmware plus engineering drawings for the mounting backplate
- Capacity engineered to the product packaging, with a 48-hour local coil turnaround on a mid-build dimension change
- Full cloud backend with an eligibility questionnaire gating free dispensing, built with our software partner Vending on Track
- Five prototypes to institutional funding to a fifty-machine rollout
Cost
- Initial Cost: $40000
