VERO Beverage Management Hardware

VERO Beverage Management Hardware
client
VERO Innovation
expertise & services
Concept development
Industrial design
Mechanical engineering
System architecture
Design for manufacturing
year
2020

Designing all-new Beverage Management Hardware for an Industry Ready to Embrace Modern Technology and Design

overview

Beverage management is big business. From pubs and restaurants, to bars, stadiums and breweries, there is a distinct need to track the amount of draft beer, wine and carbonated beverages that flow through an installation and correlate sales with costs. There are many systems and companies producing and servicing systems that do just that—however, several such organizations spend a lot of time maintaining a patchwork of tools, systems and devices that were not designed to work together, let alone for this specific use scenario.

The Challenge

Re-imagine the beverage management system from the ground up. Current offerings are primitive and high maintenance due to their antiquated technology and frustrating lack of user design.

A compilation of VERO sketches, mock-ups, prototypes, models, 3D CAD, and renderings.
A test bench of the VERO system demonstrating signal readings from each of its 16 ports.
A closeup of the PCBs that are installed in each of the VERO flowmeters.
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The Outcome

VERO, a “future-proof” system consisting of a secure and internet connected gateway, remote sensors for real time environmental monitoring, and a revolutionary patent-pending flowmeter.

A render of the VERO Beverage Management Hardware and its various sensors.
A render showing the outer waterproof enclosure superimposed above VERO itself.
An exploded render of VERO's internal components.
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Modern Technology, Repurposed

An all-new, custom developed system was conceived, consisting of a flexible and secure gateway which handles real-time data collection and network communication, and a series of application-specific remote sensors to measure various environmental conditions, such as fluid flow rates, air temperature and humidity and air quality. By considering these requirements as essential, 24/7 mission critical capabilities, we immediately discarded the idea that off-the-shelf equipment could survive a difficult life locked in a cold, humid cooler for years and operate reliably if it was not purpose-built. Instead of treating the system like an alarm system that monitored for theft or invasion, we took the approach that venue operators would be overjoyed to receive data relevant to their business, and even install such systems themselves for peace of mind and control.

We envisioned a flexible, automatically upgradeable system that quick to install, with the addition of sensors as easy as plugging in a set of headphones. The reality is even easier than that; our gateway contains only one kind of connector for any sensor. Any number of sensors can be plugged in anywhere. The system would automatically log and track the attached sensor, even the time of connection or disconnection. The only configuration was to figure out which sensors were needed and where they should be placed and everything else was handled by the system. Modern, easy to use cloud connectivity ensures both the system and the venue manager are up to date with real-time analytics and the latest software.

A render of the VERO Beverage Management Hardware and its various sensors, mounted on a stainless steel surface.
A render of VERO's family of sensors, from left to right: temperature sensor, air quality sensor, humidity sensor.
A render of VERO's smart flowmeter.
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