About Washlava

Washlava was founded by Todd Belveal, with the vision of a shared laundry experience that introduces the Internet of Things (IoT) to laundry equipment. No quarters, no waiting, and no hassle. Like many great stories, Washlava was born out of necessity.

Their Tampa, Florida center was 100 percent dependent on quarters and cash, and installing credit card readers was prohibitively expensive, but when their store was robbed and thousands of dollars in quarters were strewn across the parking lot, they decided to create a coinless and cashless platform.

Their Need

When Washlava originally looked at switching the business from quarters and cash, they realized that cash wasn’t the only problem that needed solving. They wanted to be able to manage and grow their business using cutting edge technologies found in other applications. And more importantly, they knew customers deserved a better, safer, more convenient experience. To do that, they needed to build more than just a payment platform. They needed to build app-enabled IoT technology that their customers could use to control laundry equipment and manage their laundry experience.

In order to do so, connectivity was a must for their platform. That’s when Washlava started looking into failover solutions to ensure that they had a backup plan in case the local Wi-Fi they were using went down. After a test run with OptConnect, Washlava officially partnered with OptConnect in October of 2017.

"When we got acquainted with OptConnect, we liked how simple their routers were to install. It really is a plug & play solution and that made it an easy decision to choose them."

Geoff Cohler

Software Developer at Washlava

The Solution

With their mobile platform’s functionality completely dependent on cloud connectivity, Washlava wanted to pick a failover solution that they could count on.

"Most people use a credit card reader at laundromats but that can lead to risks for your data and finances,” said Cohler. “With our solution, our data is PCI protected and it’s all in the cloud which means we can guarantee a higher level of security for our customers. However, in order to do so, we needed a failover solution to ensure that our locations would have the uptime they needed in case the local Wi-Fi went down for any reason."

With Washlava adding a level of convenience being coinless and cashless, while also adding a level of safety and efficiency for operators, OptConnect is helping to fuel that convenience and security by providing a stable connection that’s ready to use at any moment. “Any time our connectivity goes down it’s detrimental to our business,” said Cohler. “With OptConnect, we know that our business will continue to run smoothly and efficiently.”

The Rise of Mobile Payments

There has been a lot of innovation in laundry payments over the last 20 years. For a long time, coin-operated laundromats and multi-family housing locations were just that – strictly coin-operated. Customers either brought in bags of quarters to a store to use the washers and dryers, or they used the change machine inside the store. Over the years, debit card-based systems were introduced, followed by credit card-based options. Today, the demand is in the use of mobile payment apps.

Washlava has taken the lead in the mobile payment app space with their innovative platform. Using their platform, users get access to an array of features including load times, available machines, machine settings, and more.

Working with Washlava

Moving into the future, Washlava is focused on expanding their presence in universities and laundromat arenas. With 2020 on their agenda as a year of growth, Washlava wants to make sure that their solution as a whole is continually reliable. With OptConnect, Washlava knows that the connectivity part of that vision is taken care of. Brian Gill, Sr. National Sales Manager at OptConnect, says that Washlava continues to be on the cutting edge of technology and has a lot of potential to expand in the coming years.

"Washlava is both a payment solution developer as well as a Laundry Operator with business across multiple states which provides a unique perspective and a robust understanding of the business in general from all vantage points," said Brian Gill, Senior National Sales Manager at OptConnect. "We have worked together leveraging several different OptConnect products to meet the needs of their business from primary connectivity to failover protection. It’s a pleasure working with such a friendly group of people who first and foremost care about their end customer’s user experience which dovetails perfectly into our own operating philosophies."

“I recommend OptConnect because their solution works, and it stays working. Uptime is vital to our business and we know that we can rely on OptConnect to keep our routers running at all times.”