The Touchless Integration of Smart Kiosks in Smart Cities

What makes a smart city smarter? We explore the possibilities of adding a layer of touchless capability to existing hardware used in public spaces to usher in far-reaching effects with a simple tweak.

What’s so smart about smart cities? It's the smart technology and devices used to make the lives of their citizens more convenient. A smart kiosk is a device that is deployed by smart cities around the globe. For instance, LinkNYC is one of the largest kiosk connections in New York City. These smart kiosks prove valuable to governments and businesses as they enable self-service, reducing the need for human representatives and, thus, costs. Today, we’re staring at possibilities of further improving the benefits provided by these smart kiosks by simply adding a touchless layer. Touchless kiosks can benefit both users and organizations that invest in them. Users can benefit from enhanced interaction and better hygiene. Organizations, on the other hand, can benefit from reduced maintenance costs and an opportunity to reach broader audiences.

THE VISION OF SMART CITIES WITH TOUCHLESS KIOSKS

Integrating touchless kiosks can take user interaction with digital kiosks to an entirely new level.

Convenient Check-Ins at Airports

A touchless kiosk is embedded with facial and gesture recognition ability that can make airport check-ins more convenient. Imagine a simple wave of your hands at an airport kiosk to check-in! Touchless kiosks can be fed with citizens' biometric data. When passengers arrive at an airport and go to a touchless kiosk for check-in, they can start the process by waving their hands or through voice commands. Touchless kiosks with computer vision and biometrics can verify passenger details, thereby simplifying airport check-ins.

Simplified Self-Orders in Restaurants

Know the dish you want to order but don’t want to go through the entire menu or type the name in self-order restaurant kiosks? Touchless kiosks can serve such customers well. With touchless kiosks, people can now simply place an order in a way as they would with human waiters. VUI enables touchless kiosks to take vocal orders from customers and make self-service order kiosks even more convenient for them.

Trouble-Free Car Parks with Smart Parking

AI-based smart parking systems can address parking woes. Touchless kiosks can take these smart parking systems to an entirely new level. Smart parking systems are usually accessed from smartphones and require internet connectivity for real-time updates. Kiosks can provide smart parking system access to drivers without network connectivity. Touchless kiosks can enable communication between kiosks and drivers without a need for them to come out of their vehicles to get information on a vacant parking spot. Drivers can interact with touchless kiosks through their voice from their vehicles. A touchless layer can also improve the performance of smart kiosks with capabilities to perform cashless transactions. Computer vision technology used to integrate a touchless layer in kiosks can be used to detect license plates on vehicles and determine the plate number. Thus, drivers can directly receive bills and pay through their smartphones. This will eliminate the need for drivers to stop at the entrance gate and reduce the chances of non-payments.

INTEGRATING THE TOUCHLESS LAYER IN KIOSKS

Hardware infrastructure consumes a major chunk of smart kiosks. And hence the first question in the minds of governments and organizations is – what’s the cost? The amazing thing about touchless integration is the ability to add this layer without having to change your existing setup. Allerin’s AI-driven touchless architecture, for example, is as simple as integrating third-party applications with APIs.

Hardware components: Among the hardware requirements, kiosks should have microphones, speakers, and depth cameras to provide touchless interaction. Microphones and speakers enable VUI, and depth cameras enable GCI. 

Software components: Touchless kiosks require a lock & unlock mechanism and user-friendly interface design at the front-end. And at the back, it requires AI and gesture recognition technologies to enable voice & gesture recognition.