How Do Smart Lockers Work?
Smart lockers have quickly become a mainstay solution for mailrooms and facilities of all types and sizes — universities, apartment complexes, government buildings, retail stores, corporate offices, and more. Their popularity has had rippling effects in shaping the way consumers behave and shop. They have also become the gold standard for keeping packages safe, secure, and intact.
But how do smart lockers actually work?
Here we’ll peel back the curtain to give you an inside look into how smart technology works, its benefits, and how it impacts common use cases.
Shipping & Receiving With Smart Lockers
Shipping and receiving has never been easier with smart locker technology at work. It allows for convenient, secure, contactless delivery methods that have so quickly become the baseline consumer expectation.
Here’s how it works for customers with Smiota lockers:
- Users reserve a locker through the app
- The delivery is made to the corresponding locker
- User is automatically notified via app that their package is ready for pickup, including an access PIN unique to that delivery
- The receiver can pick up their package at their own leisure with 24/7 access by entering their secure PIN or by scanning a QR code
On the flipside, here’s how it works for businesses using our smart lockers:
- Scan all incoming packages; each will be automatically recorded via its tracking number
- Sort each package by the recipient name, delivery location, package type, and more
- Register each package into the Smiota system via the app
- Notify users that their package is ready for pick-up automatically once it is deposited into the proper locker
- Deliver the package or wait for the user to pick it up at their leisure
- The Smiota app then automatically tracks and records each touchpoint of the transaction and enters it into an analytics and reporting dashboard
What Makes Smart Lockers so Smart?
The thing that makes smart lockers so smart is how their integrated technology allows them to adapt to a multitude of situations and automate redundant or mundane processes.
Analytics & Reporting Dashboard
Smiota smart lockers make real-time reports on every single activity for each designated room within the app. This gives valuable insights into metrics such as how many packages are being delivered to specific locations, average package pickup time, and more. This allows you to further optimize your delivery systems and make data-driven decisions.
Automated Notifications
Notifications for both package recipients and the shipping operation are completely automated. Each interaction that a user has with a locker, such as opening and closing the door, act as event triggers that are pushed through APIs. This includes any maintenance requirements so the integrity of its security systems is never compromised.
Advanced Security Features
Between their heavy gauge steel construction, UV-C technology, antimicrobial protection, end-to-end encryption, and 24/7 monitoring with automated notifications, Smiota’s smart lockers are secure from hardware, software, and disease prevention standpoints. This helps minimize risks of lost, damaged, or stolen packages that have become so commonplace as of late.
Real-time monitoring software does constant reporting on the state of the lockers, sends automated alerts for errors and hardware malfunctions, and other potential security compromises.
Seamless Integration Capabilities
Our proprietary Locker Delivery Operating Systems (L-DOS) is the first of its kind. It is hardware-agnostic, so it’s able to integrate seamlessly into your existing smart lockers and proprietary management apps. Through our REST-based APIs, users are able to take advantage of locker remote control, manage user data, track packages, integrate with custom apps, and more.
Additionally, our back-end services are cloud-agnostic to ensure easy integration into any of your existing infrastructure.
Smiota Smart Lockers Are Your #1 Resource For Mailroom Automation
Smiota’s lockers are designed with safety, security, and convenience in mind in order to optimize mailrooms of all types and sizes. Whether for outdoors, indoors, or temperature-controlled environments, our lockers are perfect for any multi-family complex, university mailroom, business, government office, retail store, and more.
Get in touch to schedule a demo or find your new smart locker solution!
