Stern Insider Connected

'Insider Connected' is Stern's online platform, launched in August 2021, that connects their pinball machines to the internet. Compatible machines can be connected to wifi and have a QR scanner. Players can download an app and sign up. Everyone receives their own personal Stern profile. By scanning your personal QR code at a connected machine, you log in to the game. From that moment, the machine knows who you are, tracks your progress, and adds your scores and achievements to your personal profile.

The Insider Connected ecosystem consists of several parts:

• Connected machines
• Online profiles and achievements
• Verified locations
• Leaderboards

Stern Insider Connected compatible pinball machines

When the pinabll machine is configured and connected to the internet, you can just hold your phone with the QR code above it when the game has started.

Each compatible Stern pinball machine has a QR scanner built in the top right corner of the apron. All Stern pinball machines built since late 2021 have the kit installed. Stern sells a kit for older games. All Spike2 (and now Spike3) pinball machines are compatible, this is every machine produced since the end of 2016. Here you can see how the kit is installed in an Iron Maiden pro machine.

Compatible games have the QR reader in the apron.

The speaker panel has a decal with instructions and a QR code to sign up. Connected games also display information during their attract mode.

Online profiles and achievements

Players can download an app and sign up, or sign up via Sterns website. Everyone receives their own personal profile that tracks their achievements.

When you start a game on a connected machine, hold your QR code above the scanner and the game will sign you in.

If the sign in succeeds, you'll hear a welcome sound and your profile name and icon are displayed.

Once signed in, play the game as you normally would. You may hear new sounds during gameplay: each new achievement is announced during gameplay. At the end of each ball, the game will display an overview of what new achievements are awarded. This is really motivating for new players, as when you play a new game it's usually easy to reach new achievements, so you try to play again and reach more goals.

Most games have achievements for starting a mode, scoring jackpots and completing a mode.

Temporary achievements also exist.

Not only game-specific achievements exist. There are also temporary achievements which run for a day, week or month, there are long running achievements (can you get a yearly streak by playing pinball every day?), or special events (are you at Pinball Expo and play games at that location)? Some achievements want you to play multiple machines, reach a certain score (combined over multiple games). There's a lot of variety to keep it fresh and challenging for everyone.

The app and the website give detailed insights of your achievements.

Your profile is divided in 4 sections:

• The trophy room: an overview of all your major achievements.
• High scores: Your highest score ever on each machine (Pro / Premium).
• Achievements: game-specific achievements.
• Badges: Non-game specific badges you earned, such as daily streaks and special awards.

I like especially the game-specific achievements. This is helpful as games have very complicated rules nowadays. This screen gives you an idea of how much of each game you have discovered and how well you do compared to others (top 10, 25 or top 50 percent of all players). There may be whole modes you have never started, secret skillshots to discover, and much more. These insights keep gameplay entertaining and challenging. Even if you think you've mastered a game and reached the wizard mode or became grand champion, there may be achievements you've missed and now you can play again with as goal to reach these specific targets.

Not all achievements can be reached whilst playing one single game. It's not just a matter of starting and finishing all modes. For some achievements you need to play the same game dozens of times and do a specific action enough times.

Verified locations and home locations

When you play on Stern Insider Connected, you’ll notice two types of places: verified locations and home locations.

Verified locations are public venues: bars, arcades, bowling alleys, where Stern has confirmed the machines are properly connected to the system. When you scan in there, your scores and achievements count toward global leaderboards and quests, so it’s the 'official' way to compete with the wider community. Verified locations exists in all types, they can be large barcades with dozens of machines, but also a small pub with just one pinball machine somewhere in the corner, as long as the machine is a Stern machine connected to the internet and the location is validated as open to the public.

Home locations are different: they’re for collectors and players with machines at home. You can register your own game, set up private leaderboards for family and friends, and still earn achievements, but those scores stay in your personal circle rather than the global lists. Experience points earned for achievements at home, only count half of their value they're worth in public locations. In short, verified locations are where you prove yourself to the world, while home locations let you enjoy the same connected features in your own game room.

Your personal game in your home location can be set up to remember the profiles that live here. As a home owner, you and your family don't need to scan a QR code each time you want to play. You can just select your profiles stored in the machine.

Insider Connected isn't only for players. If you own or operate machines, you can enable features that make managing games smoother: remote tech alerts when a machine needs attention, and access to machine statistics.

Public leaderboards and home leaderboards

Operators can buy and install a leaderboard for their large verified locations. Stern synchronises all highscores of players for machines in that location and displays them on a scoreboard. It also allows to run local (periodical) tournaments. It's often used to run monthly tournaments.

The board keeps for each game track of the highscore of the best 10 players. Each player can only have one highscore entry for each game. When you play again and increase your high score, your new high score will replace the old one.

There is a big difference between leaderboards and the local highscore list on each machine. On a local machine, the point of view is the list of high scores. For Grand Champion, High Score 1, 2 and more, the machine keeps track of the score for each of them and who achieved it. The same player can hold all of these entries in a highscore table. A leadership board has a players point of view. It wants to give an overview of the 10 best players on that machine. For all 10 of them, only their highest score ever is displayed. Someone can have played 10 games where he scored better than the other players, but only their top score will be visible.

After much demand, Stern started in 2025 to offer leaderboards for home locations too. Note the usage may be limited for home. As it only keeps track of one highscore per player, it's only really useful for people that hold local tournaments or invite a lot of friends. If you and your partner are the only ones to play at home, there will be only 2 entries for each game. On the other hand, it can be motivating if a whole family plays. Everyone will get to see their name and highest score on the board, no matter their skill level, and can try to improve themselves. Usually the dad has all high scores on a machine and children can't ever enter their initials. With a leaderboard they will see their own name and highscore in the list.

Summary

Back in the day, pinball was all about the high score on the machine in front of you. If you wanted bragging rights, you had to drag your friends to the pub and point at the scoreboard. Insider Connected changes all this. Not only is your score stored and displayed for the whole world to see, you gain insights in how much you've discovered on each specific title.

For operators it's an easy way to run local competitions and attracts more players. Back in 1997, Cirqus Voltaire displayed in its attracts mode: 'Have you paid to play pinball today?'. Stern now not only keeps track of each player if they've played today, but awards them with an online achievement badge for it.

If you're looking for pinball parts, then check out Pinballshop.nl (affiliate link).