by Shane Henson — August 21, 2013—Doing laundry on campus can be a hassle, particularly with coin-operated machines at a distance from one’s room. But students whose schools have ASI Campus Laundry Solutions’ mobile-phone-operated student laundry program may find doing laundry easier than it once was.
According to Dayton, Ohio-based ASI Campus Laundry Solutions, its new program has already been installed in the University of Kentucky’s (UK) laundry rooms in residence halls and student apartment locations. Students can purchase their laundry services through the use of their smart phones—no more coins, no more separate laundry cards.
ASI was chosen to provide UK with new super-high-efficiency washers and dryers and this new method of payment through partnership with Heartland Micropayments, providing real convenience to students using the machines. In addition, students can find out which machines are available and receive texts when their laundry is complete through Heartland’s WaveVision product. ASI has now completed installation throughout campus, and students are already using their smart phones to credit the laundry machines, the company says.
ASI Executive Vice President Dave Drake understands that students carry one item everywhere—their phone—and this reality led to the creation of the program. The expansion of the capabilities of the phone to credit/debit use is a natural progression of payment technology, and introducing it into a basic need like laundry will add tremendous convenience, he says. If a student chooses not to use the phone, the machines also take credit and debit cards through readers installed on every machine.