Coca-Cola FREESTYLE Episode 2: The Present of Bad Soda

[Dave Macaulay]

The "touchless pour" ones show a QR code on the screen. You scan that with your phone and then you connect to the machine somehow (I did not try it) and you take a cup, add ice if you want, then select and pour your beverage from your cellular device. Internet? bluetooth? NFC? I may give it a try later today.
The machines here have a thickish plastic cover installed over the actual screen and touch is, well, touch and go.
Maybe you can make it pour soda into the drain from home... no, probably not.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I don't think NFC is really suitable for any kind of real-time signalling and it only operates reliably in very close proximity, as in, almost touching each other. Bluetooth supports an "ad-hoc" mode, that should work without pairing, but i don't know if it's easily accessible for normal apps. For communication via the Internet to work, both your phone and soda machine need to be connected to the Internet.

If the QR-code is generic and doesn't include something like an encoded timestamp, I guess you could copy that QR code and scan it from anywhere. If the communication works over the Internet, I guess you could then potentially pour soda into the drain...

[Dave Macaulay]

That Hoshizaki looks bad.
The ones I've seen look like this:

freestyle.jpg

Obviously it's the same actual icemaker but the paint job really improves the look of the drink machine. Probably Coke charges more for it than an unpainted one costs?

[Marcel Birgelen]

I can't find any public pricing information, but I guess that when you order it including the ice-maker, you probably get the painted one.

To be honest, this bulky protrusion looks a bit weird in both setups and it's almost like the painted version draws more attention to the fact that the shape is odd. I'd say the brushed metal version fits the pretty industrial looking environment of your average Five Guys restaurant pretty well.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I had the "distinctive pleasure" of encountering a bunch of those horrid machines again today.

Nothing has improved, quite to the contrary... My "Coke Classic" tasted like it had some fake sugar in it. Only one machine still had some "flavor options", the rest had them all blacked out.

Another thing that startled me is what bad state the machines were in, all three of them. Broken ice dispensers for example and they all had barely functioning touch screens. You really needed to hit the glass hard to be able to select anything. Many people were just giving up and went back to the counter to have their drinks filled from there. Maybe I should've done the same as it looked like their behind-the-counter machine was a traditional soda fountain...

[Jim Cassedy]

<edited> When it comes down to hygiene, I'm not sure if any self-serve soda machine really fares that well. .

When I was a kid, and before pop-tops on soda cans were common (mid-late 1960's) - - I remember
that a lot of the vending machines that dispensed canned soda had built in can openers which had a
sharp, heated blade-thingy that was used to punch a triangular shaped hole in the can. I recall reaching
into the machine once or twice and touching the blade, and it was hot enough to blister your finger if you
touched it long enuf. I think the idea was that it created a bit of a 'sanitary opening' on the can-top where
presumably you were going to be putting your lips to drink from.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Can't Stand those Freestyle machines. They slow everything down, especially while the elderly try to figure out how it works. Sometimes long lines of people coming out of them too when things get busy. They are not so bad where you have six or more of them... but one machine is automatically a traffic jam.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Can't Stand those Freestyle machines. They slow everything down, especially while the elderly try to figure out how it works. Sometimes long lines of people coming out of them too when things get busy. They are not so bad where you have six or more of them... but one machine is automatically a traffic jam.

There were three of them, two in a "cluster" and one further back in the establishment. The amount of people being served wasn't abnormally high, but the limited number of staff on call had a hard time keeping up. The fact that the touch screen of those machines were barely functional didn't help either. Older people are already struggling to use those things, but even the iPhone generation will fail at it when the damn touch screens don't work.

I'm asking myself it this touch-screen issue is a common issue with these models, as all three had the same issue. The screen was clearly a capacitive screen, as you could see the wires zigzagging behind the glass. Maybe those screens were simply too dirty, but given the amount of force I needed to apply to get anything moving, it felt more like an issue with the screens itself. Is this a common issue with those terrible machines after a few years of service and neglect?

Also, I still don't get the point of the design of those systems. The entire idea of self-serve soda fountains is to reduce the workload on the staff. Those "flavor cartridges" and many of the primary drink cartridges seem to be constantly empty, everywhere I encounter those machines. The often overworked staff in establishments that use them, can barely keep up with serving customers, let alone keeping up with swapping the cartridges in those things.

[Mike Blakesley]

They’re probably taking a cue from the crooked printer ink suppliers with those “flavor cartridges.” I wonder how much those go for?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

But at least printer cartridges can be refilled...

[Frank Cox]

Not necessarily:

https://gizmodo.com/hp-printers-drm-...ink-1850211997

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Not necessarily:

https://gizmodo.com/hp-printers-drm-...ink-1850211997

Ya have to refill the existing cartridge!!! Not install some off brand thing.

[Dennis Benjamin]

I am partial to the Coca-Cola Lime.

[Devin McNamara]

The theater I work at has three of those machines. I can’t agree more with everything I’ve read here. Touching the screen feels like being back in the early smart tv era where pushing the button takes about three seconds for response. Then there’s the fact that Coke has a tendency to fizz up a lot when it’s dispensed so you have to wait a bit between shots. If you wait too long, it times out and you have to go through the slow menu again to finish. And I agree with the flavor. It tastes terrible like when a traditional fountain machine is low on syrup but it’s all the time. I always joke that “this Cole tastes like gasoline”. It’s not good I promise. I always end up going behind the bar to get coke from the soda gun as it tastes way better.

[Randy Stankey]

Then there’s the fact that Coke has a tendency to fizz up a lot...

You must know the secret!
Dispense only about 1/3 full then drop off in the ice. Then, once you've tempered the solution, you can top it off with a lot less chance of fizzing over the top.