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Comment by alsodumb | Hacker News Reader

I've interacted with several vendors who use these sound boxes. The article is a bit misleading in the sense that illiteracy is not the primary driver of the usage of these devices. It is a better check-out experience. Vendors were busy and annoyed by the fact that they have to use their phone to confirm payments which often hindered them from doing their routine to sell more stuff. Think about vendors making street foods, actively selling vegetables, etc.

Now all they have to do is listen to the confirmation, directly streamed from the payment gateway vendor's server as soon as receive the money. Minor convenience, agreed, but the service isn't expensive to run (thanks to the minimal hardware it needs and the low data prices in India) and surprisingly even small vendors are okay with paying a subscription fee for it.

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Yes right.

> The 48-year-old, who can neither read nor write, would need to call his son to confirm that the payment had been received.

Looks like the author made up a narrative. These vendors definitely can read numbers, they manage loads of cash through the day. They do lightening fast calculation in their head - which would put a Math grad student to shame.

They may not be able to read, write English (or other languages) but they are very comfortable with numbers and operations on them (addition, subtractions...).

And they would not need "their son" to confirm the amount (they can read), and also they would recognize a very large green checkmark (an icon to confirm successful transaction), so don't need "their son" for that too.

I wouldn't be so sure about the author making up the narrative, it very well could be real but it is definitely not the majority.

I get what you are saying, but none of this would put "a Math grad student to shame". If you really think it does, you definitely have no clue what grad students do - sincerely, a grad student whose best friend is a math grad student.

I saw college students (not indian) fail to answer basic arithmetic questions like 50-13 stuff like that.

He meant they do basic calculations very fast with out a calculator.

I am pretty sure many math grad students are not that great at mental arithmetic, which is the topic here. We are obviously not talking about the kind of advanced maths grad students to.

It is an interesting topic. I remember seeing an article about teaching maths to shopkeepers kids in third world countries. By western standards, they are quasi-illiterate. They are however remarkably good at tasks like giving change. When asked about their reasoning, it involves exchanging bills and goods rather than abstract numbers, and IIRC, they do better than western schoolkids of the same age.

Fraud was another reason for the emergence of these sound boxes. Android store was filled with fake payment screenshot generator apps. People would show the (fake) payment screenshot and leave the shop premises (saying “must be a network problem at your end.”)

After multiple complaints from merchants, Paytm and the likes innovated this affordable idea.

+1. First time I came across these speakers was when I had tea in a road side tea stall off an highway. The shop was crowded and I held my phone at the owner to show him the evidence of payment which he ignored and within a couple of seconds my payment was announced on the speaker. Great experience!

How exactly does the experience work? e.g:

  - How does the customer know how much to send and where?
  - How quickly does the confirmation come through?  Does it say who the money is from?
  - What happens if the vendor is distracted and misses the confirmation for a particular order?

1. The merchant tells them the amount and there's a QR code on the box to scan.

2. Within seconds. When I paid while over there it was 2 - 5 seconds. It doesn't say who the money is from though.

3. The merchant has to check their phone or trust the screen on the customers phone.

It works surprisingly well for 95% of use cases. Usually more than one person isn't checking out in parallel. It lets the merchant continue cooking / packing your items / pouring a tea for someone else / etc.

Video demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUR84Qz0KbM

I would just assume that the vendor's payment app would just play a chime and maybe a readout of the amount received. Every payment app I've used has a notification with name and total when I get money. I'm pretty sure Android can already handle this anyway. Connect the phone to a speaker if you need it louder. Seems like a much cheaper solution than buying a speaker with a built-in modem that you have to pay a monthly fee for unless you just don't own a smartphone.

Not being a street vendor, I’d guess that you:

A) definitely don’t want to leave a smartphone someplace easy to check

B) don’t want to take the time to unlock your smartphone to see the notification

C) do want something that can notify you without taking your attention away from three other customers

>It is a better check-out experience.

This is exactly it! I remember the time before these speakers became commonplace. You had to wait while the vendor checked his phone, argue if there is a delay in SMS notification, crowded environments meant waiting your turn and in general it was a very real hassle. With these speakers, you do the payment, yell out saying you have done it and go your way (async I/O :-) .

It is one of those small things whose impact is huge in practice. It is a lesson to us techie folks to always concentrate on the "real user experience" rather than imagined ones.

Hmm... but the phones too have speakers, they could have just made their to app read it just like the speaker does it.

Even busy vendors are hopefully able to triangulate. If fraud like that takes off I imagine they’d just relocate the speakers to a high, rear location where customers could never fake it.

Would you live your smartphone out? And it would also eventually drain the battery/fall/get wet

I really think the form factor is great.

I guess you can’t choose tips so American can’t use it. But I find it a good example of less intrusive tech.

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