Vending machine manufacturer Crane Merchandising Systems is working on its own monitoring hardware, as is Mars Electronics, maker of dollar-bill changers.

FORBES: Cantaloupe System brings order to vending's chaos.

While GigaSpaces is also monitoring the development of competing hardware suites from other manufacturing, "right now, there isn't anything else that's complete, " Shalom says.

FORBES

Though the outfit typically makes software used in situations ranging from natural disasters to election monitoring, it's taking a hardware project to Kickstarter that aims to ease connectivity woes for itself and others.

ENGADGET