Future coffee experience is touchless

Offer a safe touchless coffee experience

Coffee and refreshment points, whether in an office, hotel or coffee shop, are a place where people would normally naturally gather and frequent.  But with a multitude of commonly shared appliances to navigate and a myriad of buttons to press, they can seemingly be a place for germs to collect and linger.

At Scanomat, we have been thinking carefully about the ways in which TopBrewer is designed to create a secure and comfortable experience for employees, visitors and consumers to enjoy premium barista-quality coffee safely and at a distance.

Here is a summary of how TopBrewer, through individual user control and existing inbuilt smart tools, is enhancing the built environment to help businesses create a safer, touchless coffee experience for everyone. These tools are already available right now within the TopBrewer ecosystem – and they’re free, so why not take advantage of them!

Touchless Coffee is Real

When restrictions ease we are going to be looking at shared devices in a whole new light. Who else has touched this before me? Where is the nearest place I can wash my hands? So anything we can do to reduce surface contact and visibly increase reassurance is paramount.

For peace of mind and safety, touchless coffee brewing from the TopBrewer means there is no need to touch a shared screen or physically press a button to select a drink. TopBrewer is uniquely designed for personal use through your own smartphone with hands-free app control as standard, allowing consumers to enjoy and customise barista-quality coffee, the way they like it, at a safe distance.

The TopBrewer app is completely free to download on iOS and Android, connecting to an available machine via Bluetooth to brew a premium, barista-quality coffee in seconds. The popular personalisation features within the app allow consumers the freedom to customise their drink and save their favourite recipes.

In terms of enjoying your favourite coffee at a safe distance, you needn’t worry.

Safe distance

With social distancing affecting all aspects of our daily lives for the foreseeable future, we are giving our customers comfort and peace of mind that their TopBrewer coffee machine is taken care of from a safe distance. Why? Because we understand that the last thing you need right now is multiple technicians turning up to service multiple pieces of equipment.

How? CoffeeCloud powered by TopBrewer is our own safe and secure cloud management tool that provides us with remote access to your coffee machine so we can monitor performance, carry out diagnostics and assist with remote fix without needing to carry out unnecessary visits to site. And guess what? It is available completely free to all existing and new customers.

All machine data and insights are also visible to our customers to monitor things like peak times of day to avoid queues, when the coffee machine was last cleaned, most popular drinks and other useful statistics.

To enable CoffeeCloud, TopBrewer machines must be connected to WiFi and we can help with this remotely to get you online in just a few seconds.

Click here to find out more about how CoffeeCloud is leading the way in remote IoT coffee machine management.

Use push notifications to work smarter

We recognise that keeping your coffee machines operational throughout the day can be hard work, with operational staff making multiple trips to the machine throughout the day to ensure that the coffee beans are full, the machine is clean and the coffee grounds are empty.  COVID-19 presents new challenges as we try to navigate reducing surface contact and implementing social distancing for the increased safety of both your users and operational team.

This is where push notifications come in really handy. Through CoffeeCloud, TopBrewer customers can set up alerts via email to remind them when certain tasks need attending to. No need to check if your coffee beans need filling, simply get a notification when they are running low. This smart, proactive approach reduces staff contact with equipment, minimises disruption for users and is much more efficient.

Again, this is a free management tool for all TopBrewer customers.

All in one tap

Imagine if you had one tap that could replace the kettle, the hot water boiler, the hot water tap, the filtered water tap, the water cooler, milk from the fridge, the hot chocolate machine, the filter coffee machine and the bean-to-cup machine. Remarkably, TopBrewer can do all this in the most minimalist and easy to clean package. Combined with touchless control (via the TopBrewer app), this streamlined approach enables minimal contact with shared beverage facilities, creating a safe and trusted environment for all, as well as less equipment for operational staff to clean and maintain.

With all of your favourite drinks in one place, including fresh coffee, hot chocolate, steaming hot water for tea and still & sparkling filtered water you can create a safer environment for your staff and consumers.

99% under counter

When COVID-19 restrictions relax, reducing surface contact in public areas will be a key concern to limit the transmission of germs. When it comes to coffee, bulky tabletop machines and freestanding vending machines are a hazard for collecting bacteria. In contrast, 99% of the TopBrewer is safely located below the counter with just the swan neck visible, making it super easy to keep clean and hygienic.

What's next?

So all of those tools are available to access right now, but we are already thinking about the future. Here’s an insight into one of the new ideas we are fast-tracking:

Barista DJ - Currently being fast-tracked in BETA testing is our new Barista DJ IoT (Internet of Things) tool which will enable our support staff to make physical changes to your machine settings remotely over the air. We are accelerating this programme to meet growing demand for remote support in light of the COVID-19 crisis.

It is clear COVID-19 is evolving our perspective on social spaces and although we don’t know what the ‘new normal’ will look like, we do know that smart businesses are already preparing to adapt shared spaces, such as offices, business lounges, universities, coffee shops, hotel lobbies and retail convenience ‘to-go’ self-serve outlets, to build trust with consumers, comply with social distancing rules and reduce the spread of germs whilst not losing sight of delivering an exceptional coffee experience.

Inevitably, when the time comes to ease restrictions, employees and consumers are likely to be quite nervous about leaving the safety and comfort of their own homes and venturing into a public space which they once thought of as safe and familiar. The onus now is on businesses, with the help of suppliers and technology, to build trust in these environments once more with a digital transformation towards ‘touchless’ control.

The good news is that touch-free and contactless functionality is already widely available, but there has never been a greater need, where public safety is paramount, to speed up adoption.