Kiosk
What are some kiosk best practices?
A guide to maintaining your Mashgin kiosk — covering power cycles, cleaning, camera care, approved hardware, signage, and optimal placement strategies.
📋 Overview
Following these best practices will help maximize kiosk uptime, maintain accurate item recognition, and deliver the best customer experience. Consistency in maintenance is key to long-term kiosk health.
🔄 Weekly Power Cycles
Step 1. Power cycle the kiosk at least once a week
Fully power cycling the kiosk on a weekly basis helps maintain system health and prevents performance issues from accumulating over time.
See the related article link for step-by-step instructions.
🧹 Clean As Needed
Step 2. Keep the base and cameras clean
Keeping the base and cameras of the kiosk clear of dirt and debris is essential for accurate visual item recognition. Clean regularly, especially in high-traffic or food-service environments.
See the related article link for step-by-step instructions.
📷 Regular Camera Maintenance
Step 3. Inspect and clean camera covers regularly
Ensuring the cameras and camera covers are clean and free of obstructions is crucial to maintaining kiosk health. Dirty or smudged covers are one of the most common causes of item recognition issues.
See the link page for detailed instructions.
🔌 Avoid Connecting Unapproved Hardware
Step 4. Only use Mashgin-approved hardware
Mashgin kiosks are designed to operate exclusively with approved hardware. Connecting non-approved devices can:
- Impact kiosk performance
- Cause irreversible damage
- Void your service agreement
- Result in hardware replacement fees
See link for the full list of approved devices.
🪧 Add Signage for Customers
Step 5. Place signage strategically to guide customers
Signage helps direct customers to the kiosk and improves adoption. However, improper placement can interfere with cameras and scanning.
Placements to Avoid:
- On the base of the kiosk, especially if it blocks the white and black dotted calibration pattern
- Hanging or dangling signage that obstructs the view of any camera
- Blocking any kiosk peripheral (barcode scanner, scale, card reader)
Recommended Placements:
- Secured flush against the kiosk tower
- Lightweight signage on top of the kiosk hood
- In front of the kiosk or screen, without covering them
See link for more details.
📍 Kiosk Placement
Step 6. Position kiosks within the natural flow of traffic
The best placement puts kiosks front and center, aligned with the existing customer flow at the site. Kiosks placed off to the side or out of the main path break customer habits and reduce adoption.
Ideally, kiosks should be facing left or right relative to traffic flow so customers can easily queue beside them.
Positions to Avoid:
- Outside the flow of traffic
- Out of line-of-sight from the rest of food operations
- Locations where direct sunlight can shine on the base or cameras (this heavily affects item recognition and can temporarily disable it
Low-traffic locations: If your site typically needs 1–1.5 cashiers, we recommend deploying 2 kiosks. With only 1 kiosk, customers tend to default to cashiers except during peak periods — leading to poor item maintenance and even lower kiosk adoption over time.
💡 Tips
- Perform a quick visual inspection of the cameras each morning before opening
- Train staff to recognize when the kiosk base needs cleaning (visible smudges, debris near cameras)
- Avoid positioning kiosks under HVAC vents that may blow debris onto the base
- Encourage staff to use the kiosk themselves — familiarity builds confidence in helping customers
🔗 Related Articles
Need help? Contact support at 📧 help@mashgin.com or call (855) 475-0889