Hello,
I’m considering building a custom point of sale, management system for my restaurant businesses. One of the features on this roadmap would be to have a kitchen display system. I understand that’s it can sync online when there’s an internet connection.
However, I’m curious to know if it’s possible to have setup a bubble webapp to communicate locally, in case of internet outages, increased reliability and speed since it’s LAN, etc.
Bubble, is in the application layer… it doesn’t “know” if you are on a LAN connection or not.
Are you asking if you can create a bubble app that works without internet connection OR are you asking if you can integrate a bubble app with a local system that doesn’t have an interface on the internet?
I would suggest no, it’s cloud hosted not locally hosted.
That being said, it would also take a heck of a lot of work to build something like this (but 100% doable).
I would review your options for prebuilt systems first, since there are many on the market, as they connect to cash registers, receipt printers, tax systems, etc.
In the end, that will likely be the easiest route.
I should have clarified better, but the scenario. I’m looking for is the following.
Let’s say this is for a Point of Sale for a Restaurant.
A restaurant will have the a computer/tablet point of sale, and a tablet for the Kitchen Display System (A digital system to see the incoming food orders to be made instead of a Kitchen Receipt Printer)
I’m curious to know if it’s possible to have a LAN connection to communicate the data. Instead of relying on the typical internet connection to keep things synced.
I appreciate your feedback, I know it’s an immensely large undertaking , this idea I’m floating around. Currently, I’m not 100% happy with the offerings out there on the market, and I’ve demo-ed and experienced many. I’m most likely gonna put the aim of the POS on the back burner as I know there’s lots a hurdles such as even connecting to a Thermal Printer. But I was a bit inspired by the creator of http://washdryfoldpos.com , Who makes a living out of bubble
For now, I’m just creating a custom data reporting system and employee resource/training center that works my organizations restaurants and will integrate with our existing POS systems/Online Platforms among our restaurants for more live/accurate reporting in all categories of expenses and income. But one day it’d be nice to just be the POS as well. So I wanted to scope out the potential of Bubble.
Seems like a great community so far.
Yeah I’m not saying don’t do it, I’m just saying weigh the options first before doing it. The biggest concern I would have is if you lose internet, then how do you run your business?
If you can answer all the issues and still want to do it, then it’s likely not a bad idea. Just means your might need redundancy on your internet connection, and stuff like that.
@Alan_x_n
So if I understand correctly, you are developing both sides on bubble and you want to implement some P2P communication between them? What happened when you want to add a second or 3rd Point of Sale that can send orders to the kitchen…
I think the best architecture is to have a system server that all the end points (point of sale or kitchen or something else in the future) talk to. If you need this server to be on-prem for whatever reason (data privacy, network latency, etc…), maybe Bubble isn’t the right solution?
From a pure technical side, if I wanted to implement something like that , I would try to look at creating a custom client side plugin that implements some API (using JS code not the API capabilities of bubble plugins to make sure this is done directly from the client) and feedit with local network IP addresses
You made my day! Glad to inspire 
One of the best features of Bubble is that it “bubbles up” new data (hence the name). For example, my app Wash-Dry-Fold POS has an Order Tracker page along with a Register page. It’s common that a store will have the dedicated point-of-sale system computer that’s connected to the receipt printer and weight scale and cash drawer kept on the Register page, and over in the work area to have another tablet or computer kept on the Order Tracker screen so they can update details about drop-off laundry orders they’re working on in the laundromat. When a new order is rung up on the register POS system, it automatically appears on the Order Tracker screen over in the work area. It’s automatic and just how Bubble works.
You may be overthinking the whole local LAN communications thing and would be better served connecting a cellular failover router if constant internet connectivity is a concern.
Thanks for your insight, I appreciate the technical point in the right direction. I’m generally just trying to see what’s possible with bubble and perhaps you’re right.
Haha, I’m glad to hear that! And I didn’t expect that I would be getting a reply from you.
Yeah, I figured that could be an alternate solution, we have a some of those for our cc terminals at some locations.
I’ll probably take it one step at a time and start with sales integration, reporting, expense tracking , hr management, training resources, before hopping into the whole restaurant pos hurdle. Accurate and near real time cost of goods and labor is getting way more necessary in this scary economy.
Since you’re here, I’ve kind of wondered. Is there an obvious benefit to you for choosing windows based hardware vs Android hardware for pos systems?
Is it because thermal printing is generally more feasible?
Credit card processing integration? Actually, is the bubble pos directly integratable with the credit card terminal? To read whether transactions were approved or ran.
Great questions!
We interact with the credit card terminal (which has its own internet connection) via API so that’s pretty platform agnostic. We just used Bubble’s API Connector plugin to build our own calls.
We use Windows because of familiarity with it and ease of connecting accessories like receipt printers, desktop printers, magstripe readers, thermal label printers, weight scales, and barcode scanners.
If I’m going to sell it then I have to support it and I don’t know how to make Android act like a suitable replacement for a desktop computer.
We also have a program we install on each client computer which allows us to interface with all this hardware from within the browser and it currently doesn’t support Android.
The price point of purchasing tablets or computers without an OS or with Android is appealing but Android just doesn’t fit our needs right now. We sell hardware B2B and part of the appeal of our products is that you’re not locked in and can install whatever other software you need on the device to help run your business, and most people are familiar with Windows.
Well after all this time now I know why it is called Bubble. 
I double-checked and the official story is that it’s a nod to the term “tech bubble” so perhaps I misremembered something I read once upon a time. I like my explanation more 
Thanks for the feedback, Brian. It does seem to make more sense for it to be windows based. I didn’t expect that the credit card terminal would have it’s own API for outside connections like that. So basically the credit card terminal is connected to the internet, tells whatever servers that the transaction has been ran and approved or denied. And then you’d have the bubble app connect to it through some API integration you setup to be able to see on the Bubble POS side immediately whether it went through or not? Instead of say…doing it through a local direct connection integration?
Essentially, yes. There are many credit card processors out there now with their own built-in gateway and well-documented APIs.
It’s another source of income for your company in addition to your software income: If you help your customers sign up for their own merchant accounts through you and use your software’s integrated solution, then you earn residuals based on their merchant account’s sales activity. No need to pass along the processing income to Stripe or Square when you’re doing all the development and customer support!
Controlling the fees as an ISV (independent software vendor) can also be used as a sales tool. If you can save a potential client real money with lower processing fees AND it’s more savings than your software’s monthly subscription cost AND your software has unique features that make operating their business easier or more successful then you’ve got a winning combination. Let’s face it, credit card processing is a commodity but if you pair that with your unique problem-solving software then it’s a real one-two punch on the sales process.
Stripe has terminals and an API you can use. So the answer to your question is yes, Bubble would work for any IoT device with an HTTP request.
Yeah, I saw that. Unfortunately, We’re gonna beginning to expand out of US and into Mexico, and from my communications with Stripe they don’t do business there or won’t let it go into a Mexico bank account, plus their fees take more haggling to get down than I’d like compared to some others. I think I’ll probably have to just do some footwork to figure out which companies I’ll go for and how their physical crediting card machines can integrate.
Good to know, thanks Brian, you’ve definitely given me something to think about and probably lots of work ahead, with that said I gotta say customizing your own app real-time instead of working with developers to problem solve UI and Bugs has been great.
My partner has always been pushing for our own POS systems and becoming a merchant provider as we’ve gotten beaten up by several systems out there, that just don’t do quite what we want or in our management style. So we’ll be using it internally first and beating out the bugs and design and the day we can actually make this a product to other customers would be awesome.
I think I got answers to questions I didn’t originally ask, haha. I’m new around here, is it standard decorum to select a solution to end a thread?
