Remote-controlled mobile vending machine comes to you

It's a roving robot that sells you snacks.
By Sasha Lekach  on 
A mobile vending machine with one big wheel selling pastries in front of Dolores Park in San Francisco.
Watch Next

Instead of getting up to go to the snack machine, what if the snack machine came to you?

Tortoise Mobile Smart Stores are vending machines on wheels that can be deployed in all sorts of situations: a day at the park, after-hours in front of a restaurant, or during a ball game at the stadium.

The company behind other remote-controlled devices unveiled the concept Friday with plans to roll out in NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, San Diego, Santa Cruz, CA, and South Carolina and Missouri, along with London in the coming months.

Vendors like San Diego's Mini Donuts Company and Chicago's grocery chain Go Grocer are signed up to bring their products where the people are. The cost to partners using the mobile machine is Tortoise's 10 percent cut of all sales.

Tortoise has a team of teleoperators who monitor transactions and move the device around. The remote operators can also play an audio message to customers to make sure everything is going smoothly, or let them know if there's an issue.

If you want something, the top of the lid accepts tappable credit cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. Your purchase unlocks the contraption, allowing you to take out your bag of chips, doughnut, fresh fruit, or whatever is for sale.

It's the ultimate vending machine — meant to take only 15 seconds. Plus, your quarters can't get jammed, and your E2 selection can't get stuck in its corkscrew niche, leaving you hungry and frustrated.

Topics Robotics

Mashable Image
Sasha Lekach

Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.


Latest Videos

'Godzilla X Kong' in love? Parody reimagines the epic monsters in iconic romances
Kong and Godzilla reenact "Brokeback Mountain."


World’s tallest wooden wind turbine promises a cleaner future
An aerial shot shows workers standing inside a wooden wind turbine as it is being constructed.

The Gozilla X Kong cast reveal which past characters would crush against a Kaiju
Dan Stevens, Rebecca Hall, and Brian Tyree Henry




This drone could be the key to learning more about our oceans
By Warren Shaw
Hydrus Underwater Drone

Jon Stewart gives a no-holds-barred teardown of Trump's fraud case
A man sits at a talk show desk with an image of an older man in the top-left corner.

The biggest stories of the day delivered to your inbox.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
Thanks for signing up. See you at your inbox!