SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome to What's in the Box, the podcast brought to you by Boxtech, empowering retail with purpose. Boxtech delivers innovative and market leading customer engagement solutions that turn business ideas into a performing reality. From design and integration to ongoing support and maintenance, we're with you every step of the way. Now, today I'm delighted to welcome a very special guest who is quite close to me, and you'll realize why very shortly. With over 25 years of experience in IT and technology, my guest today specializes in developing cutting-edge solutions and delivering transformative digital innovation for retail and hospitality. He has partnered with global leaders like Intel and was a key contributor to the development of NinjaPOS and the Core 7 POS. He was also part of the founding teams for Inefy, Spotlight, and Angible. More of that later. And is the driving force behind Boxtech's new self-checkout range. And when not playing with POS, he loves tuning and maintaining his 1982 air-cooled VW camper van, which he says takes him and his family on beach holidays, all while achieving a lofty 19 miles to the gallon. Perhaps that'll stay in the garage for the time being with the price of petrol going through the proverbial roof. Anyway, it is a great pleasure to welcome Boxtech's technical director, Leonard Gilbert Wines.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Thank you, Andrew. Thank you very much. Yeah, and actually the camper's on the driver with a slow punch at the moment, so I'm uh not making any effort to fix that. So I don't know.

Retail Technology Show Preview

SPEAKER_00 1:57

No, I would I I was looking, I'm kind of uh got uh the the ROC app and that's showing me fuel prices and every day they're just going up and across. One direction. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's one direction, but not quite as we know it. Um so reason why I wanted to get you on to what's in the box is of course the box tech are displaying. We have a stand at the retail technology show, and just really wanted to uh talk to you about that and what people can expect when they come and visit uh us. And that's only gonna be in a couple of weeks from now. It's uh this month, April 22nd and 23rd at Excel. So let's kind of first of all paint a picture of the stand because I believe that um you've got it in kind of product zones. I think Ryan saying those five zones. So talk us through that and let's kick off with self-service and what people can expect there.

Modular PCs And In-Store AI

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, absolutely. And for those who visited us last year, we are gonna have a similar layout for the stand, so very familiar, but we're gonna actually hone in on those zones. The first zones with self-service, we've added a few new products to our self-service range, and we're really focusing on delivering value and flexibility within our range. So we're gonna have anything from our 15-inch brand new self-service device, self-checkout, all the way up to our 22 and our 27-inch self-service, i.e., self-order kiosk, you know, tap tap on the screen rather than scanning first. And one of the most exciting additions is our 22-inch Android first tap-to-pay kiosk with um our soft pause integration. So some really exciting developments, and we'll be really um excited to share and to welcome visitors on the stand to show the latest tech that we have brought to that uh sector.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

And one of the other songs is um modular. What can people expect to see there?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

The modular range are devices which are usually hidden in the fabric of the building. You know, you don't normally see them, they're tucked away. So these are headless PCs that are either running your pulse system, but more and more they we're we're creating very small form factor devices that are energy efficient, multi-OS, Windows, Linux, Android, Chrome OS. And they are running your digital signage platforms. They are back office PCs because of that continuity with our products. And also, we are bringing a brand new product for AI workloads, which allows you to deliver whether it's voice AI, camera AI, or loss prevention AI in store at a very, very aggressively cost-effective and energy efficient platform. So, yeah, really exciting space within the modular space.

Mobile Handhelds For Assisted Selling

SPEAKER_00 4:46

So, okay, so we've got self-service pos, which I guess still that that's uh what people know know box tech for, but um as we're gonna uh discover here, there's a lot more to uh to show. So pos, modular, and and then moving on to mobile, which for me is from an industry trend point of view, is one of the most exciting areas, and I think that we're gonna see more and more of that, particularly perhaps in the but not confines of the luxury space, but I think it lends itself to luxury. We we we always used to talk about clientelling. I don't hear that word quite as much now, but I think we all know what we're what we're talking about, the assisted sell, if you like.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Yeah, that's probably the better way to put it, assisted sell. So it's enabling the store associates, the colleagues to have technology on hand. So whether that's roaming through the store or, as you say, shoulder to shoulder with the with the customer, exploring the extended range or looking at finance options, etc. We have had long range of Ninja hybrid product, which is an 11-inch product, which is in the hand, integrated scanner, hand strap, very easy to use. That is a fully fledged PC in the hand. But we are excited that we will be showing exclusively for the first time a brand new form factor in this space, which is actually a pocket, pocketable handheld, which Boxtech hasn't actually delivered before because we were looking at the right time and the right combination of technology and also the integration with our MDM Inify Spotlight, deliver a really tight package on that handheld space. So, yeah, be really cool to for our visitors to come in for us to share that with them.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

You mentioned Inefy though, and in the introduction I mentioned that and Angible. Let's talk about services and finish the the five zones, and then perhaps as part of going through some of the products that people can expect to see. We'll we'll come back to um perhaps Inefy and Angible because they're both very exciting.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

So the fifth was zone was services.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, so we put services down in the zone, but it's actually spread throughout the stand. So services caters a couple of things. So one it is our software services, and that's where Angible and Inefy come in. So Angible is our loss prevention AI, perfectly paired with our South Checkout uh solutions. It's a bolt-on option for ISVs and retailers. You can take it or leave it if you're using alternative, that's absolutely fine. But we obviously feel that our loss prevention AI has something real special, and that is the how tightly tuned it is to our hardware. You know, it's a software component that is driven and supported by a hardware manufacturer. So it's tightly packaged and can be and is really scalable. So it isn't caught out by you having to basically have a data center in the back of back office. You can run it on one of our AI machines, and as well as Inify Spotlight or Inify. Inify is really close to my heart. As you said, I was one of the founding team who defined Inify, and that was around bringing an MDM, mobile device management, but also a real-time remote monitoring and maintenance package. So I distinguish the two because MDM comes from your tablet, your Android tablet space, and remote monitoring comes from your enterprise, so that's your Windows Linux devices. So Inify does that and is does that at the real low level within retail and hospitality because you can have the motherboard and the CPU, et cetera. But really, a system falls over when one part of that system fails a printer, a scanner, a light bar, a camera, etc. Inify takes care of all that. So we've got some really cool demos showing that. Even in the demanding and uh challenging space of a trade show, we're able to demonstrate that. But the other bit is around Android. So IneFi, we have invested in bringing Android to Intel. So we can talk about those journeys where maybe you need to stay on Windows for now, but your ISV or your software is saying in the future we're going to switch into Android, and we can show those journeys going from Windows to Android, remotely switching with no engineering resource. You can have the confidence to deploy now and switch later. So we can show that journey.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

And the the remote monitoring, because uh I wish I'd had that facility when uh I with my team was uh looking after the POS estates and everything that went with it back in the days uh when I was at SuperDrug. But just tell us because I th I believe that Inefy in itself is quite market leading in terms of um, you know, it's got capabilities that I'm not sure whether they're available anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah, you're right. And I do I do forget sometimes to to promote, but yeah, the what you've just mentioned there about you wish you had something similar, that's what actually sparked us to develop Inify. I, as a technical director here, my previous role was technical manager on the support desk, and just the amount of support tickets that come in where I just wished I was able to reach through the phone or reach through and just be on site. That's what Inify enables you to do, essentially, to have that real-time sensing of what's happening on site. You know, I think of cameras being a certain sensor and microphones. Inify is like the sensor, but for your pulse system. And just to touch on one or two things where point of difference for Inify is that one, uh, we have that deep integration at the low level with the peripherals. So the maintenance counters from, say, an Epsom printer, how many cuts is it done? Is it got a cutter error? You know, we can clear that cutter error remotely. We have deep integration with Intel, VPro. So if you have an i5 or above, we're able to trigger the remote power-on, remote reboot, also OS recovery and BIOS recovery. We could do that also on our own devices, the box tech devices, at levels lower than an i5. So an i3 or Celeron, we can we have our own module which allows us to do a power on and off BIOS recovery and OS recovery remotely. That is, that doesn't need to be paired with a specific module that needs to be defined at the factory. But if you go into it knowing that that is going to add value, Anify can do that. And then lastly, where the real USP comes from is that it's a one unified package. You don't need other third-party remote control apps. Our remote control, when it's not being used, is actually shut down. So you remove or reduce that security threshold. It only is only enabled when you click the remote control button, it establishes a link. When you break that, it closes it down. Uh so see it as an all-in-one platform that allows you to maintain your products, but also get ahead of the game. So sometimes you're closing tickets down before they're opened. Essentially, you're informing the store, we've identified a problem, we've solved it, or an engineer is going to be with you before your store opens, so we can solve the issue and have no impact on your trading way.

Angible AI For Shrink Reduction

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yeah, so the benefits of that are to our our audience, whether they're retailer or hospitality, are very clear and very obvious. That's a game changer. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit before we get because there's a number of physical, if you like, units, products that I know that you wanted to talk about. But before we do that, I mentioned Angible earlier. We've got to include that because using AI at self-checkout and to to reduce or eliminate shrinkage theft is obviously uppermost in I think every retailer's mind. So tell us a little bit about um Angible.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Well, just think about that journey at a self-checkout, whereby, for me, I have a 10-year-old and he always wants to help. And you know, you end up with that unexpected item in the bagging area, the bag might be leaning against the sidewall, or my son might have dragged that pot of Pringles over to the side without me noticing. And the check weigh scale is essentially, it's not really geared towards real-world uses. For me, anyway, when I'm shopping, I I see it more as a hindrance rather than a benefit. And looking at the way that the associates in store handle the exceptions, they also have issues with it as well. So the idea with Angible is to use a dedicated camera. It could be actually your CCTV IP camera or one of our cameras on a on a pole. And it's like your eye, it is literally like your extra set of eyes looking at what's happening at a human level. And we essentially look at relationships with product. So whereby, you know, has an item missed a scanner? Has it not scanned? Have you double scanned, which can be even, you know, that can be bad for stock inventory if someone's double scanned, it's not been picked up. Or even that stacking where someone's, you know, got a something like a wagyu beef joint and they've scanned, you know, some something similar weight, and they're trying to trick the check wave scales. Angible and loss of engine II picks up all of that. And it can either do a really light nudge to the customer to say, hey, you've missed that pot of Pringles, Leonard, go and rescan, right? Yep, absolutely. Or if it's something where it's obvious that there's a bad actor in play, you can freeze the South Check out, send a light, send a buzz to an earpiece, and you know, have a member of staff come over and assist and try and diffuse the situation. Yeah. So we're essentially saying that Angible is, you know, this it can't stop someone walking out the store, but if they're trying to be a bad actor, or our data shows that a lot of the loss is actually through un you know, unintended, or where someone's had a issue with payment and they've basically walked away without paying, and we can also pick that up as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've actually had the just the other day, and I'm this is the first time I've done it. I've my mind was obviously on other things, and I can't remember what it was, but it went straight from my basket to the back. Oh, really? Yeah. But it was a very friendly message that came up. I think you might have forgotten to, you know, rather than you thieving so-and-so, we're gonna lock you up.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

And that's the trick, is actually those technologies we want to train the you know, the customer to be a good customer, essentially. Because your staff, your members of staff, you know, they go through training, how to scan, how to interact, and you're expecting your customers to do the same. And so we we uh we enable those journeys, but ultimately it's up to the retailer how those prompts have come up. Yeah, and we have integrations globally where some are harsher than others, or as friendly as you say as, hey, we think you've missed that item. Do you want to rescan?

ew Boxtech Hardware Highlights

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we've got about five minutes left, and I know that you wanted to just highlight a number of the new products from Boxtech that people can expect to see on the stand. Um, just walk us, uh walk us through those, Leonard.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah, I've touched on one or two earlier, but we have a brand new mini PC which is geared directly at AI workloads, but also we can use it as a store PC. So if you have, say, a range of self-service devices or a catalog style lookup devices, you need that server at the back end that can drive the content or the uploads locally, and we have a dedicated PC for that. We call that a core eight mini PC. We also have three new self-service devices: the edge 27, the edge 22, which are self-order, and they are very easy to service, very easy to maintain, and also they are always in our product range very power efficient. So really excited to show those. And the last one on the uh self-service is our edge 15, which is essentially, if you think of a pulse system on the counter and you want to turn that into a self-checkout, we have a device that essentially can slot straight into there from the footprint point of view, and also that existing furniture and turn what is a you know a manually manned lane to a self-service self-checkout, which is great for universities, for convenience tools, etc. Yeah. Very easy to service as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

And the last product is our exclusive going to be shown at the show new handheld device, which enables again Android soft pods, and that is the store operations within retail, but also squarely aimed at hospitality too.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

That I mean that that that handheld, um, you know, I mentioned earlier about mobile, and and and that again, you know, it's um it's kind of like a reflection of where the retail store is moving. So uh I think it is true to say that we're we're expecting a lot of interest in in that at the show.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah, and we have nested it on a little area where we have the handheld, we have our ninja hybrid, and we have our core seven poles, which is a new product, but that is essentially a POSE unit which is aimed squarely again at that hospitality area, has integrated screen, scanner, NFC, Wi-Fi, very small footprint, and it allows pub groups and hoteliers to have a dedicated system which needs very minimal maintenance, but runs very well, and you can change the orientation of the screen so it can be a traditional you know landscape system, or you can change it to a portrait, and it can be a south standing south order uh terminal as well. So one that I forgot forgot to mention, but we've done it at the end there. So yeah, really excited for the uh core seven pods as well.

Where To Find Boxtech

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yeah, no, absolutely. Uh well, that's a great rundown on what people can expect. We're just about out of time, so that's all from what's in the box for today. Uh you can see BoxTech on stand P78. That's P78 at the retail technology show, which takes place at Excel in just a couple of weeks' time, the 22nd and 23rd of April. Come and see us, we'd love to love to talk to you about all these fantastic, amazing products that uh we've got. And stay tuned. More uh podcasts, we'll be hoping to record some of these at the show. More will be coming out very soon. And please follow the link in the description to find more about Boxtech. And thank you so much, Leonard. That was fantastic. We'll see you at the show, and uh, thanks for listening.