I was one of the first to receive one early 2015 from a guy that had business cards with the name "Jack CEO" on it. Even though the guy (Jack CEO) was really enthusiastic about the ATM, the software was running on a localhost webserver running on a raspberry that ran chrome in kiosk mode. (not very fast of course and wonky as f*ck!)
Not only did the ATM accept money without an internet connection present (I mean seriously, where does it get its rates from?) it would also display a rate out of nowhere that looked nothing like the current bitcoin rate.. I could not get it to work after repeated attempts and all the replies I got via Viber support where that they could not SSH into the 'machine' (WTF? On my network?), case closed. The camera was the standard raspi cam module stuck with mounting kit to the back of the case, impossible to ever repair should it break just like the other components, glued to the inside of the case. The screen was a standard raspi touch screen as you see on Aliexpress, low resolution, slow response, few bucks, free shipping. Brrrr.
When booting the machine, it would briefly show the raspi icon and boot sequence and the salesman was annoyed that I started giggling when I noticed that.
The Bill acceptor did not have a stacker for the bills and no markings for brand or model whatsoever. Eventualy I found out it was the type of bill acceptor used for massage chairs in malls, hardly the counterfeit bill detection needed for a cryptocurrency ATM. Also found some videos on youtube where a few russian pranksters had fun feeding a chinese gambling machine (based on the same bill acceptor) blank paper notes and managed to get credits that way. Hardly comforting for a potential operator.
Steel from the casing was not thicker than your average PC case and could be pried open using a standard can opener. Security consisted of a kensington cable lock normally used to prevent laptop theft. The UI looked not bad, a bit like the early Lamassu GUI so maybe just a copy-paste job until you touched the screen, it would be slow and non-responsive, camera would not focus correctly and that is where the fun ended for me and became really annoyed.
As if the above was not enough to scare you away the ATM required you to deposit Bitcoin into a master account on their servers (yes, that still happens, the server that is down now!) and this is where I signed off. I switched off the machine, dismantled it, analyzed the Raspberry PI imaged and noticed it was a violation of GNU public license and was put together by a madman with a glue gun.. Not touching it any longer....
FYI: This is the same company behind free miners that burned within 30 mins of switching on because of faulty design or whatever. Also they recently produced coolwallet, a hardware wallet that looks nice but probably is a rip-off of the Trezor firmware or some other GNU violation just like their 'ATM' was... Would not trust these guys with a single satoshi and think they are a disgrace to the ATM industry.
On a positive note: The salesman was friendly and felt a bit sorry for him that he had to try and sell this junk to people but felt I had to prevent other local bitcoiners getting stung by this scam. I kept the salesguy busy, kept the ATM of the market as this would be really bad for the perception of Bitcoin in the eyes of the end-user if this kind of rubbish is dumped on the market and people pay 1000 USD for something that was maybe worth 100 USD and a few sticks of hotglue.
Disclaimer: I work for GENERAL BYTES nowadays (since october 2016) , an ATM manufacturer (www.generalbytes.com) but between Dec 2013 and Jan 2015 have purchased, tried, tested and reviewed practically every single bitcoin ATM model that came to market only to find that most failed at hardware, software, delivery or any other combination of the previously mentioned problems.
Many had centralized wallets (BTC-O-Matic, This Model, BitXatm, Modenero, SumoATM, Robocoin, etc.) and operators either got their funds stolen (BTC-O-MATIC, BitXatm, SumoATM, Modenero) or did not even trust the system to put BTC in in the first place. (This model)
Bottom line: If it looks to good to be true, it probably is.... Best is to look at the top vendors on coinATMradar.com and see for yourself what you think is a safe bet. Don't just look at some pretty screenshots and a souped up web-site but compare support, verify quotes from different vendors, double check features, what about built quality? Make sure you verify recommendations from vendors, most time these are old and probably outdated.... The real cost of running a bitcoin ATM is in service calls and downtime, reduce those to a minimum and that is where your ATM business runs a nice profit. If you are stuck with high maintenance equipment without proper fleet management tools, you will never be able to scale the business past a few machines.
