Background – Purpose of the Project POS Receipt System Using NFC and BLE
Each year thousands of tonnes of paper receipts are printed in shops, supermarkets, and other retail outlets.
The customer NOUMI had created a prototype device that is connected between the POS terminal and the receipt printer that gives the user the option of receiving a digital copy of their transaction receipt directly to their mobile phone on an app as an alternative to a traditional paper printed receipt or to a receipt sent by email.
This revolutionary device from NOUMI would mean that a great deal of paper and ink cost and associated environmental waste can be saved without the need for the customer to disclose their private email information to the retailer often within earshot of other people standing in the queue to pay. The receipt would be transferred there and then to the customer’s smartphone.
The NOUMI device would need to be powered by the USB connection from the POS terminal and to the POS terminal would need to annunciate itself as one of several industry standard receipt printers.
Challenges to Address
Eccel needed to completely redevelope the prototype NOUMI device hardware and firmware to use lower cost and more readily available Integrated Circuit devices and also add many extra required features such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) receipt transfer in addition to NFC receipt transfer.
This was required because the NFC device is only capable of storing 4K bytes of data and some POS systems store receipts as image files rather than text files and these are very much larger than 4K bytes.
Therefore, BLE transfer capability to the customers phone was added for the POS systems where image-based receipts are used.
Eccel also developed the capability of the NOUMI digital receipts device to communicate offline via Wi-Fi to the NOUMI cloud-based server for the purpose of retailer receipt copy storage. It is a regulatory requirement for retailers to store for 6 years and receipt of a customer transaction that was made using a debit/credit card/ contactless payment. Adding this feature saves a retailer huge amounts of paper receipt filing and storage.
In addition, the NOUMI device was developed by Eccel to handle returns and refunds and promotional discount vouchers to replace the paper and printing required for these in traditional systems.
Technology Developed
The Noumi POS Receipt System Using NFC and BLE
Eccel developed all of the hardware and firmware in the NOUMI device to:
- Connect via 2 USB ports to the POS terminal and the receipt printer.
- Annunciate the NOUMI device to the POS terminal as a recognised receipt printer. This means that no POS software changes are required and no new device drivers need to be developed.
- Annunciate the NOUMI device to the receipt printer with the correct printer driver interface protocol and responses/ handshakes.
- Carry out a digital receipt transfer to a smartphone presented to the NOUMI device via NFC or BLE.
- Give the option via the button on the device being pressed to send the receipt to the printer for a hardcopy receipt instead, if the customer does not want a digital receipt.
- Store retailer receipt copies via Wi-Fi to the cloud server hosted by NOUMI for the retailer to store their receipts on.
- Offer the customers a cloud server storage of all their receipts for recall in future such as when they change or lose their smartphone.
- The cloud storage facility offers retailers access to customer spend activity (only in their business and not other retailer spend activity). This enables targeted promotions to be sent to customers.
- The cloud storage facility offers customers access to promotional discounts and other such rewards and loyalty schemes.
- NOUMI device firmware can be upgraded / bug fixed over-the-air (OTA).
- The NOUMI device gives coloured LED plus a sounder indication and feedback to the user of status and completion of digital receipt transfer.
- Receipt transfer is done in 1-2 seconds for text-based receipts and 3-4 seconds for image-based receipts. The longer image receipts do not require steady very close proximity of the smartphone to the NOUMI device because it is done by longer range BLE rather than NFC.
