
I Waited 19 Months for the Magic Coin Card and It Was a Big Disappointment - publicfig
http://recode.net/2015/07/13/i-waited-19-months-for-the-magic-coin-card-and-it-was-a-big-disappointment/
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kstrauser
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.

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

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

~~~
cwe
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.

~~~
Glide
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.

~~~
mikeash
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.)

~~~
cwe
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.

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xur17
> 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.

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kstrauser
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.

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majinwala1
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.

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untog
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.

~~~
karlshea
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.

~~~
JoshTriplett
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.

~~~
Dylan16807
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.

~~~
JoshTriplett
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.

~~~
Dylan16807
>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.

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brk
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.

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Negative1
“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...

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claytonjy
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

~~~
claytonjy
Here's a good comparison of the 4 big ones: [http://forum.xda-
developers.com/general/off-topic/coin-vs-pl...](http://forum.xda-
developers.com/general/off-topic/coin-vs-plastc-vs-stratos-vs-swyp-t3056219)

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

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

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maxerickson
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.

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pspeter3
I never even got my coin despite paying for it.

~~~
imglorp
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.

~~~
pspeter3
Thanks for the heads up. I'll try that then.

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xt00
I've also never received mine despite buying I think 2 or 3 of them..

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

And how about PayWave?

~~~
thesimon
Afaik Paypass/Paywave can't be cloned as well
([http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/21982/can-i-
clone...](http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/21982/can-i-clone-my-
credit-card-using-the-nexus-s-and-galaxy-nexuss-nfc-chip-if-n)) 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.

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Zigurd
Never got mine :(

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

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comrade1
How many cards do people have? I've got an amex and a visa. What more would I
need?

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

~~~
toomuchtodo
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).

~~~
kstrauser
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.

