STINGER LEDGE
A screen and a voice, in the room with you.
Ledge is the hardware side of Stinger. Everything else runs on a laptop or a phone; Ledge is for the shop wall, the front desk and the kitchen pass, where neither one is the right shape.
What it is
The part of Stinger you can walk up to.
A technician with both hands full, a front desk with a guest waiting, a kitchen mid-service. None of those moments end with somebody opening a laptop. Ledge puts the business on a display in the room and gives it a voice, so it can be asked a question and answer out loud.
Built and running today
The software side is live.
The face
Annabelle's face and voice, filling whatever screen it is on. Ask it a question and it answers out loud, with its mouth moving to the words.
What is waiting for you
The things sitting in Command Center for your approval, shown on the unit. Until a unit is paired it says it is not connected yet, instead of guessing.
Push-to-listen notes
Hold to record, let go to send. The unit says out loud that it is recording and lights a consent light before any audio is captured; if that notice cannot be played, nothing is recorded. Command Center transcribes and summarizes the note and files it as a proposal, saved only after you approve it. Notes are short by design, and every one is counted against your plan like any other use.
Pairing with Command Center
A panel to enter your Command Center address, test the connection and pair. Pairing is confirmed by the owner after a successful connection, never assumed because an address was typed. Voice notes and Annabelle's voice each have their own on/off switch.
A status board
The parts of the business on one board: shop, field, house, bar and cage, each with its jobs, stock and alerts, plus the weather. It refreshes every 20 seconds from Command Center when paired, and shows built-in example content until then rather than a blank screen.
A usage meter
What the unit spends is counted on the unit, against a monthly cap, so it is visible where you are standing. Command Center does the final pricing.
Owner-only layers
Some layers of the face are shown only in owner mode. The floor, kiosk and house views never show them.
An accountability checklist
A screen that checks the pieces a unit needs are in place: the portrait, the operator kit, the microphone consent, the owner-only layers. It reads Clean, or tells you how many are open.
Setting up a unit
Prototype units are prepared by an operator.
Today a unit is prepared by a technical operator with a step-by-step kit: a guided checklist that asks for the owner's consent to each step, picks the computer being used, and hands over a downloadable operator kit. It is a build process for prototypes, not a set-up for someone unboxing a product. A simple, self-serve set-up is part of what Stinger Base is being built to provide.
In development
Stinger Base, our first hardware unit.
Stinger Base is in development and is not for sale. It is the first unit built to run Ledge as a piece of hardware of ours rather than software on somebody else's screen. It is being prototyped on off-the-shelf hardware today, and there is no release date to give you yet.
We would rather say that plainly than put a date on a page and miss it. When there is something to announce, it will be announced here first.