I used to go to a laundromat that used something like a smartcard to keep your balance. You’d refill it at the kiosk and swipe it at the washer/dryer.
I had a reader/writer around somewhere from a few years prior, when I was messing around with old Echostar boxes.
Wish I could have found it. Those machines didn’t look to be connected to anything. I didn’t see any wireless networks in the area and the equipment didn’t have any data lines.
I’m almost willing to bet the balance was stored as an value on the card and gets read/rewritten with every swipe, and essentially just security-through-obscurity. Meaning I could either back up and rewrite a $20 card forever, or rewrite the balance to having FF credits or whatever.
There also is a point of cost. They aren’t going to spend a bunch of money securing a laundromat. If they spend a bunch of money left and right your laundry fees would be pricy. Not to mention a laundryman isn’t exactly a high profit business.
I agree with the first part of your comment, but laundromats are absolutely a high profit business.
source: family friend owns a bunch of them, every single one was net profitable inside of a few months and they are now basically pure profit month over month. They make more money than I ever have from a single software development job, even at my peak, and they largely just farm maintenance out and pay some labor.
I used to go to a laundromat that used something like a smartcard to keep your balance. You’d refill it at the kiosk and swipe it at the washer/dryer.
I had a reader/writer around somewhere from a few years prior, when I was messing around with old Echostar boxes.
Wish I could have found it. Those machines didn’t look to be connected to anything. I didn’t see any wireless networks in the area and the equipment didn’t have any data lines.
I’m almost willing to bet the balance was stored as an value on the card and gets read/rewritten with every swipe, and essentially just security-through-obscurity. Meaning I could either back up and rewrite a $20 card forever, or rewrite the balance to having FF credits or whatever.
There also is a point of cost. They aren’t going to spend a bunch of money securing a laundromat. If they spend a bunch of money left and right your laundry fees would be pricy. Not to mention a laundryman isn’t exactly a high profit business.
I agree with the first part of your comment, but laundromats are absolutely a high profit business.
source: family friend owns a bunch of them, every single one was net profitable inside of a few months and they are now basically pure profit month over month. They make more money than I ever have from a single software development job, even at my peak, and they largely just farm maintenance out and pay some labor.
Yeah, laundromats are hard to beat, because your only real operating costs are bills and maintenance on the machines.
how much would it be get a reader? What skills would I need to keep resetting the amount?