I Waited 19 Months for the Magic Coin Card and It Was a Big Disappointment | Hacker News Reader

I Waited 19 Months for the Magic Coin Card and It Was a Big Disappointment

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46 pointspublicfig39 comments

I preordered very early in the initial backer stage. After a year of almost nothing (except their comically bad "early beta" debacle), I saw the Apple Pay announcement and canceled my order that very day. That was the moment I knew Coin was utterly doomed.

They could serve as a case study in how not to do customer service. When you're behind schedule, you cannot afford silence. You have to blog, tweet, Facebook, hire skywriters, anything and everything to tell your customers what's happening and give them a reason to trust you. I don't mind when a project is late. I very much mind when the project gives me the impression that someone absconded to a Caribbean island with my investment.

On a technical level, well: chip and pin. I thought coin was worth $50 when I thought it would be coming out a couple of months after I bought it, so I'd get a good year of use out of it before new card tech rendered it obsolete-by-design. Even if I got one today, my credit union is going to chipped cards in two months. After that date, there is literally no reason I'd personally want to use a Coin.

Slightly offtopic: how's your experience with Apple Pay so far?

Not the OP, but as someone with an Apple Watch, my experience with Apple Pay can be summed up easily: I still pay with my credit card. It's just easier. Each time I've tried to pay with Apple Pay, I feel the fool. It's much easier just to hand the person a piece of plastic and then get it back. With Apple Pay, it's stupid, sitting there with my hand waiting to pass it over the device. Oh wait, no, too soon. Gotta pay attention. With a card, I can pay and not thing about what I have to do. Just hand it over.

Apple did the impossible: made payments more difficult than even cash.

Wow, I've had the complete opposite experience. In most/all stores I deal with regularly, you can swipe your card at any time while they're scanning your stuff. You can do the same thing with the watch. I've been able to get away with using it in countries where it wasn't officially supported yet, as well, since it's just NFC and no one has explicitly blocked Apple Pay there (sadly not the same in the US). Results may vary.

My experience mirrors your own. It's really convenient in stores where you have to swipe your own card rather than hand your card to the cashier. Apple Pay on the watch is better than the phone too.

And I've picked Walgreens over CVS several times because of Apple Pay.

Thirded. The hard part of Apple Pay is figuring out whether you can use it. The NFC icon isn't always obvious. When in doubt, I don't try. But when I do try, it's fast and easy. I just wait until the terminal shows my total, then I hold my phone up and it goes through. It's not a game-changer or anything, but it's a nice convenience.

(One exception to the above: Home Depot had terminals that claimed to do NFC but would hang for a while and eventually time out and error if I tried Apple Pay. That was annoying.)

In the US a lot of terminals that technically could support Apple Pay because they use NFC (and have the logo you mention) have explicitly disabled Apple Pay support. So the scanner 'sees' the watch and kinda starts the transaction, then fails later because it's "not supported yet". Because they have a vested interest in a competing product.

In Canada (where the chip & pin is much more prevalent) I find paying via NFC to be a lot easier.

In many stores the credit card terminal is right in front of you. After indicating you'd like to pay via credit, the terminal is "activated" and shows your total owed. At this point you can insert your chip &pin card, or simply tap the card (or your phone) if there is an obvious NFC reader.

From the sounds of your comment, the whole timing of this workflow just isn't very smooth for you since many people are still paying with regular swipe credit cards.

Edit: Speeling!

I haven't noticed if Walmart's new readers are NFC enabled, but using a chip and pin card with them is all about timing. Too early and the transaction hangs during authorisation. If you don't go through the prompt and explicitly declare the transaction as a credit, the transaction won't go through either. If they're NFC enabled I'm sure the same restrictions apply.

I love it and use it whenever the credit card machine has an NFC reader. I usually pay with my watch and it hasn't failed yet.

I still carry my bank's debit card for incompatible readers, but after having my card blocked three times in the last three years for fraudulent activity, I love not having to give out my real account number whenever I can avoid it.

> But he also indicated that Coin expected to produce some faulty cards because of the volume of devices it was manufacturing. “A big part of doing mass production is stabilizing each unit so it performs as well as we want. When you build tens of thousands, you get some variability,”

Shouldn't they test the cards before shipping them out so users don't get the really crappy ones? The one the op received was completely broken, and worked at one of the four places he went to after trying 4 times.

I just saw this from the article:

> “With us, you’re holding the thinnest wearable ever made so it kind of tests limits of those tolerances. Over time, as we figure things out, we’ll make that variability smaller and smaller.”

Yes, a wearable. A credit card is totally what I think of when I imagine wearing something. Advice to CEOs: figure out what market you're in and concentrate on it! When you start throwing out random buzzwords, it gives the impression that you're making it up as you go. I don't want to hear "our entry in the Internet of Things space" (my words, not theirs) in the context of my wallet.

I received mine yesterday. It took me 3 hours to scan 4 cards and load them on the app.It does not work well with android or ios. After using it I can clearly feel that it has lots of issues. Cons that I clearly see 1) Card reader hardly works and their troubleshooting guidelines and customer support are useless. They dont know the product well 2)It does not show the bank name. I had two visa card, one debit and credit. There is now way for me to identify them as debit or credit and I have to remember last 4 digits. 3)If I have to use it at restaurant and bluetooth is lost as card is taken away from my table it will get declined. 4)There are very good possiblity that some can change my selection once I hand over card for payment(example resturant) 5) they dont have any update on EMV support.

This was totally inevitable, and I was amazed so many people jumped onto the bandwagon when it was announced. Contactless payments were already a thing, chip and PIN was already announced... it would only ever have a couple of years to live. And then they took 19 months to deliver it.

And, the battery is non-replaceable. Once it dies (two years) you have to buy a whole new card.

Nothing about Coin ever made any sense to me.

Just as with thin laptops, replaceable batteries make it harder to remain thin. Current systems pack every bit of unused space with battery cells. There are several issues with Coin's approach, but unreplaceable batteries aren't one of them.

But isn't the battery not even rechargeable? Sure, it's hard to let it be replaced in that form factor. But how about one I recharge every 6 months instead of one that lasts 2 years before dying forever.

Rechargeable batteries are larger and less efficient than the equivalent non-rechargeable battery, and you then need some circuitry and mechanism to charge them. A charger might well be more expensive than the card, significantly larger, and more intimidating for prospective users. And the card itself would then last less time on battery and would likely be thicker and heavier.

On the other hand, making it rechargeable would allow for a pile of "charge card" puns.

>larger and less efficient

Sure, that's why I put in the 4x reduction. They're not that much worse.

>circuitry and mechanism

A charger circuit costs 25 cents and doesn't have to be integrated into the card. It already has a sort-of base station you use when you're programming it.

All you really need is a low-current 4v source. You could make a USB charger for a tiny lithium ion battery out of a cable, a diode, and a resistor.

I had one of the early beta units, and recently received what I guess in the production version. I never set it up and stopped using the beta a while back.

Overall I loved the idea, I like to keep my wallet slim and I have 2 credit cards, bank debit card, airline club membership card, paypal debit card (rarely used), and a rewards card with a magstripe. In addition to those I have AAA, drivers license, boat license,and medical/dental cards. So, being able to consolidate even 3 of the credit cards into 1 would be nice. I also have things like a Lowe's card, Home Depot card, etc. Those get used very rarely, so I usually have to look up the number at the store, it would be nice to be able to "carry" those without taking extra physical space.

The problems I've had with my Coin: 1) Too thick to fit into some readers at gas pumps and similar where you slide the card into a narrow slot. The coin is just a touch thicker than a normal card.

2) Randomly doesn't work at various locations, so I could never totally leave me credit card(s) home, Coin ended up being a +1 in my wallet, not a -3

3) Odd looks at some locations, refusing to accept it (though admittedly pretty rare).

4) Problems adding cards, this is mostly a 1-time annoyance, but now if you get a card replaced due to theft/fraud it's an extra step to deal with.

I agree, contactless or other payment options will likely eclipse Coin.

“With us, you’re holding the thinnest wearable ever made so it kind of tests limits of those tolerances. Over time, as we figure things out, we’ll make that variability smaller and smaller.”

How is this card in any way a "wearable"?

Also, if he is to believed (a big if), those are some pretty poor yields...

Does anyone here have a competing "magic card", like Stratos/Plastc/Swype? I don't, but I'm curious if they all have these reader incompatibility issues or if some are engineered better than this one.

Edit: added names of other competing cards

Here's a good comparison of the 4 big ones: http://forum.xda-developers.com/general/off-topic/coin-vs-pl...

They mention that Coin doesn't support "Track1 data" which prevents it from working at lots of big retailers

This has always felt like it's solving a problem that doesn't exist, to me.

Aren't they kind of doomed in the face of contactless phone payments?

I guess I was never in the target market anyway, I've never had more than 2 cards.

I never even got my coin despite paying for it.

Same here, not yet.

Note that if you do intent to proceed and want your card as a backer, there's a step they're not publicizing well. I learned from customer support that you need to download your app and register it before they will ship. This will serve to confirm your shipping address. I think they are prioritizing those users for shipment.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll try that then.

I've also never received mine despite buying I think 2 or 3 of them..

They should not be able to copy chip&pin cards when those finally arrive in the USA.

And how about PayWave?

Afaik Paypass/Paywave can't be cloned as well (http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/21982/can-i-clone...) so their "solution" is going to be interesting. The purpose of chipped cards is exactly to prevent against clones/skimming, so these devices should die pretty soon. If they don't go the Apple Pay way, which probably costs a huge amount of time and money.

"Chip & signature" cards are surprisingly well-deployed already, at least on the card side. I've received several new cards in the last 6-12 months with a chip, but apparently no PIN. Walmart's payment terminal made me use the chip when I tried swiping (AmEx). I don't know if that behavior is selective based on transaction value or something, but that particular card may already be incompatible with Coin.

Never got mine :(

Last time I heard from them was 11/24/13

How many cards do people have? I've got an amex and a visa. What more would I need?

I have those, plus a debit card that I use for all day-to-day purchases. Apparently we're in the minority, though.

My wife enjoys playing with different rewards cards to take advantage of various temporary details. I often have one card for restaurants, one for groceries, one for normal purchases, plus an American Express for Costco.

I'm also a bit paranoid and have a fear of getting stuck somewhere because one of my cards stopped working, so I like having a large collection with me.

Amex primarily, Discover for places that don't take Amex (which is a lot more than you'd think), Visa debit (through an investment broker, so it has much higher daily limits) as a backup for the above.

It sounds silly, but over time you realize those edge cases that are a pain in the ass if you haven't planned ahead (I need $1000 accessible via debit immediately because a family member has lost their wallet across the country and I need to Western Union them some cash to get home).

No, I totally get it. I have my work Amex for travel, my personal debit for all personal daily spending, and a Visa for the case where one of those cards doesn't work. I don't want to be stranded in another country without money just because my debit card got compromised and blocked.

For me, the credit cards wouldn't be the most useful, but rather the membership cards like Costco, Zipcar, gym, etc. The problem is that none of these cards are standardized (Costco has a photo of the member, Zipcar is a prox card, gym card is scanned by barcode rather than magnetically, etc.)

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