EverythingYouAlwaysWantedtoKnowAbouttheParadorInteractiveTable...

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Parador Interactive Table...

After our interactive table developed for Parador and the digital POS was awarded a FWA of the day, the creators of the site asked us to share further insights into the development of the installation with their readers. In the blog entry, you'll learn why buying flooring no longer has to be a tedious task.

What did you want to achieve with the project?

Buying flooring can be a more or less unpleasant obligation. It's expensive, you usually get your hands dirty, and it's difficult to visualize in advance how it will look once everything is installed. We wanted to support Parador in making this process easier and more user-friendly by targeting both the end user and valuable contract dealers who control the actual point of sale with the product. We didn't want to use technology just for the sake of technology, so we searched for a suitable hardware solution that is retail-friendly, user-friendly, and easily usable for other stores.

What technical challenges did you face and how did you solve them?

A major challenge was, as is the case with most retail applications, to make the setup as unobtrusive as possible so that it is easy to ship, remotely maintain, and also plug-and-play capable. This meant that we didn't want to rely on stable internet connections (or any internet connections at all). Therefore, we developed the mobile app and the RFID reader infrastructure to work offline and synchronize when the internet is available.

What does winning an FWA Award mean to you?

It's always fantastic when the team is recognized for its great work, and this is especially true for this project. We are very proud to have won an FWA, as it was somewhat unexpected for this particular project: that makes it all the more meaningful for us.

Tools we used:
  1. The iPad app was written in Ionic
  2. Raspberry Pi was connected with balena.io
  3. RFID readers and RFID tags
  4. Backend to control the products, written in Vue.js
Three hot facts:
  1. Currently, the interactive tables are installed in over 50 locations worldwide.
  2. Parador offers 460 unique flooring options to choose from.
  3. We created custom PCP cards for the RFID readers, which is pretty cool.
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