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Braving the great outdoors Part 4: Where it can all go wrong

February 6, 2012 by Michael Ionescu — President, Ionescu Technologies

This will most likely be my last blog on outdoor kiosks for at least a little while until we get closer to our Baltimore City Inner Harbor Outdoor kiosk project, which is designed to be a fully connected internet enabled series of outdoor kiosks. As a final farewell, I figured that I would describe one my worst experiences that happened to me years ago when implementing our first outdoor network.

We were genuinely ecstatic when our first outdoor kiosks were delivered. They had 17-inch screens, thermal printers, credit card readers and a really nice brushed stainless steel finish. The units had a sleek, modern and rounded look. Little did we know that it would turn into one of our largest 6-month headaches. Here's an outline of what went wrong:

Screen burn-in: When we first turned the units on for operation one morning, we were extremely impressed by the bright screen. During midday however, small black bubbles were forming on the screen and expanding, as if the picture were melting off the screen. At first we thought it was a defect until my manufacturer said that the screens cannot be placed in direct sunlight contrary to what I had been told before.

To me, it's kind of a no brainer, but I don't consider a kiosk to be "outdoor" capable if it can't be placed in sunlight.
What we learned: When purchasing screens, make sure they are "sunlight readable," which means they are meant to operate in direct sunlight.

Rust: While we were in the process of figuring out how to fix our screens, rust set into our units within the first month. Apparently the rust-proof coating did nothing to protect our units from actually rusting, which meant that our kiosks probably would last less than one year before becoming unusable.
What we learned: When we had our original units replaced, we had a much more durable industrial strength powder coat put on that protects much better against rust. Our newer units go a step further and use aluminum instead of steel, which should eliminate rust issues altogether. Also, make sure you have a solid 1-year warranty to cover this kind of problem. We had a 1-year warranty, but definitely not a solid one, which brings me to my next problem.

Failed manufacturer promises: The rust and burned-out screens were simply unacceptable, and they were going to be replaced under our warranty: only they were not replaced until six months later. Why did it take six months? I don't know, but it became obvious that they had much less experience building outdoor units than they had originally said.
What we learned: If problems crop up with hardware covered under warranty, get something in writing saying when a defective product will be replaced. Also, talk to your manufacturer about common problems associated with outdoor kiosks, and make sure they have detailed, reasonable explanations for their construction. If they have trouble explaining their methods, that's a pretty good sign you might not get a great product.

Easy-to-replace hardware: I am always a big proponent of being able to replace hardware quickly and effectively. When I had to replace the screen in our first outdoor kiosk, the screen was held in by more than 20 screws, most of which were in hard-to-reach areas to the point where I had to use four different screw drivers to get them out out. On top of that, there were so many sharp corners I cut up my hand.
What we learned: Most people don't think of how easy a kiosk is to fix until they run into problems, but if people take time to make sure components can be fixed easily and quickly a lot of time and money can be saved. In many cases, if you start out with high-quality hardware, the only things being replaced are CPUs and maybe a switch to an upgraded touchscreen.

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