Cashless catering: mobile biometric swipe pods?

[pete]

We have a desire to shift where possible to cashless catering, using digits as authentication (they need to lose 10 before it won't work, so more reliable than cards).

 

We also operate two mobile food stalls to cut down on congestion / encourage kids to eat stuff rather than skipping meals to play football.

 

Does a mobile product exist that can sync or cache balance info, provide biometric auth against a cached or live database and do so securely (Radius, WPA2 preferred, WPA as a fallback)?

 

My experience of catering systems' network stacks is that they're universally rubbish, so I'm expecting some sort of PDA + Biometric reader device. Say a modified version of the things couriers use.

[Cue]

If you can find a decent wired system (you'd still need to plug it in, mind you) you could hook up an Access Point to the stall and use it to bridge the connection to your Wireless Network (basically using it as a wifi antenna as opposed to an AP). Just a fall back if you need it, since it's hard to find something that does everything you want, it's generally missing one vital ingredient.

[pete]

Bridge might work for the "wheel out, setup and stay in one place" stand. The other is like a cinema usherette setup (minus the torch).

[plexer]

Technically with most systems I think you only register one finger and as they are different you only need to lose 1 finger before you would need to re-enrol.

 

Ben

[peepsw]

Trust-e from Nationwide Retail Systems have a portable terminal with a Biometric Scanner