RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips seem to be popping up everywhere these days. As RFID chips get smaller, innovative companies are finding more uses for them. These chips serve as a method of remotely storing and sharing data via radio waves. Similar to the magnetic strips on the back of credit cards, RFID chips can be attached to cards, products, and even animals. Some RFID advocates even imagine a future where you can go to the store, shop for the items you want to buy and simply walk out of the store with them. Scanners on the store exit would automatically detect what products you’d purchased based on their RFID chips and send you a bill.

Though RFID chips have not been deployed that widely yet, a company name Innovative Control Systems has recently introduced RFID technology in an attempt to streamline the payment process at car washes.

ICS is offering the RFID system as a value-added service to its customers in the car-wash industry as part of the ICS Auto-Sentry touch-screen payment terminal. This terminal can process cash payments (it dispenses change), as well as payments made with magnetic-strip credit or debit cards. As such, it can be deployed at unattended car-wash stations, where customers drive up to payment kiosks, select the type of wash they want, pay and follow instructions to enter the automated car-wash tunnel. [read more...]

If the technology takes off, it would allow busy car washes to automate the payment process and reduce the overall time it takes to wash a car. This is good news for both consumers and car wash owners. Consumers would no longer be troubled by sometimes confusing car wash payment menus and car wash operators could wash more cars per bay.