Automatic Laundry, a laundry service provider to college and universities in the Northeast, has recently upgraded the student laundry equipment at Bentley University in Waltham, MA. The update at Bentley will see students use the company's proprietary LaundryConnect Pay app, a closed-loop mobile payment system.

To use the system, students can first download the LaundryConnect app from either the Apple App Store or Google Play store. Then, after loading an initial balance either via debit or credit card, students can activate the laundry equipment using their smartphone’s existing Bluetooth capabilities. Given that cell signals aren’t always the best in basement laundry rooms, the company made it a priority that cell phone service not be a requirement to start the laundry equipment.

Automatic Laundry partnered with Bentley to replace an increasingly obsolete and expensive laundry system. Students can now load funds anywhere and at any time straight from their smartphones, and seamlessly purchase laundry services without having to physically handle coins, cash or use a card.

“Given the importance of smartphones to our student customers, it only makes sense to align the payment system with the way they manage their daily lives," says Scott Scarpato, Automatic Laundry’s President.

The company's mobile platform accepts all major credit card brands, and all transactions are TLS 1.1 or higher encrypted by user smartphones when connecting to the company's PCI-certified transaction host for the latest in transaction security.

“The University was facing the prospect of incurring a significant capital expense to upgrade their legacy system," adds Scarpato. “We were able to offer the University our LaundryConnect Pay app, which allowed Bentley to circumvent a large hardware expense and ongoing support fees while at the same time enhancing the overall student laundering experience.”

Since launching the platform campus wide in August, approximately 3,000 students have downloaded and are using the app at Bentley.