Abstract: A vending machine containing one or more racks that contain stacked products to be vended to customers. An array of capacitive switches or capacitive switches are aligned on one or more racks. The capacitive switches are each aligned with the height of a product to be vended. A controller coupled to the array of capacitive switches senses the presence or lack thereof of a product in the rack, and correlates this presence or absence to a height and/or inventory count of products in the racks. The vending machine, using the controller and communication electronics, may communicate the height and/or inventory count of products in the racks to a device located outside of the vending machine, such as a hand-held computing device and/or a management system, over a communication link.

Abstract: A vending machine locking arrangement operates electronically by way of an electric motor. In particular, the arrangement is a retrofit of an existing, mechanical-key operated T-bar, which is used to close and lock the machine's doors, to provide an electronic locking system not reliant on the use of a mechanical key. The arrangement substitutes for the conventional barrel lock at the handle-end of the T-bar a small electric motor (e.g. a camera re-wind motor) which acts upon the resident locking piece in the T-bar by, e.g., a cam arrangement. The inventive arrangement also makes use of an existing hole near the locking piece for making an electrical connection to the motor. An alternative embodiment places the motor outside the T-bar, the motor then having its own locking piece in the form of, e.g., a rocker arm engaging with an opening in the T-bar. Also disclosed is a smart-card system for driving the motor to trigger the unlocking process.