6.1 Overview

An Unattended Retail & Coffee Solution (for better readability we use the term Vending Machine in the following text) is built out of various components. This specification focuses on components that may be provided by different vendors and therefore require standardized exchange of information between those components. A component may be used by various Vending Machines and does not necessarily need to be physically connected to a Vending Machine, like for example a user interface (UI) that runs on a smart device of a customer like a smart phone or tablet.

In addition to the interactions of the components of a Vending Machine, this specification also defines information exchange to monitor Vending Machines by applications that cannot be considered to be part of the Vending Machine.

Requirements on the power supply of components of a Vending Machine are described in Annex C, and requirements on the network infrastructure of components of a Vending Machine in Annex D.