American Green and its high-tech weed-filled vending machines are back. At the NAMAOneShow last week the company debuted a new product line that lets customers get their pot fix using just a smartphone and biometric security.
Patrons looking to purchase marijuana, edibles, and vaping supplies will need to link their smartphone to the vending machine using an app available on iOS and Android. To do that, users log into their profile and verify their identity using the biometric sensor on their phones. Customers then simply display a QR code to retrieve their product.
Here is a video showing the interface the machines will deploy:
“Creating a process that allows flexibility in the machine selected by clients yet permitting verified accounts to login to the machines of any companies who choose to participate will grow adoption faster and simplify use by all parties,” said David Gwyther, chairman and president at American Green. “A baseball fan could buy a beer at the game in New York and cannabis from a dispensary in California the next day through the same app utilizing their verified account. This is a huge step forward for smart retail and the automated sale of regulated products.”
American Green has been making weed vending machines since 2009. In 2015, it debuted ‘ZaZZZ,’ the first pot vending machine in Seattle. That device sold medical marijuana, and used an on-board camera to verify information from customers’ driver’s licenses. We still aren’t sure how the new app-based system will handle the application process to register your profile with its machines, but American Green is setting high expectations for the process, claiming it will handle the vending of controlled or age-restricted products with a system that is “as good as a human.”
The new line of weed vending machines will be the first to sell products from three different marijuana manufacturers side-by-side. There is no word yet on when and where they will launch.
We have reached out to American Green and will update this article if we hear back.
H/T Mashable