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Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?

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Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?

#31

Post by FanaHOVA »

blntechie wrote: post #28

I love the convenience of physical SIMs. Will hate the day when I don't have a choice but to 'upgrade' to eSIMs. I have a phone with dual physical SIM card slots. I can go to any country in the world, buy a SIM, put it in, and am up and running. eSIM provisioning at airports is barely available in few coubtries. I broke the display of my phone? Easy, remove the SIM and put it in a spare phone and I can still make and…

You can buy eSIMs before you reach your destination fyi. Used them in Europe and India through Airalo after buying them in the US.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?

#32

Post by nixosbestos »

eSIMs are fantastic! Except that they just make me even more irate with various service providers that don't work with them, or don't work with the VOIP number that I use when using data-only SIMs.

Seriously, my Airbnb account has been broken for TWO MONTHS because Airbnb:

1. Uses SMS (only) for 2FA. For a fucking international travel company.

2. They don't support VOIP numbers for SMS 2FA. An issue I reported to them at least 4 times over the past 2 years.

I'm sorry, but what the fuck is wrong with people. Not everyone uses an iPhone, and even then, I'm pretty sure those iPhone carriers will NOT DELIVER SMS WHEN IM IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.

If I could donate 10% of my salary to just sending boxes of dog shit to the AirBnb C-Suite, I would.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?

#33

Post by Bluestein »

blntechie wrote: post #28

I love the convenience of physical SIMs. Will hate the day when I don't have a choice but to 'upgrade' to eSIMs. I have a phone with dual physical SIM card slots. I can go to any country in the world, buy a SIM, put it in, and am up and running. eSIM provisioning at airports is barely available in few coubtries. I broke the display of my phone? Easy, remove the SIM and put it in a spare phone and I can still make and…

SIMs are one of those things that work so well they shouldn't be touched - which doesn't mean doing away with progress (ie. eSIMs) - it means both should coexist.-

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?

#35

Post by bloggie »

I use eSIMs exclusively for travelling. They are extremely convenient and the cost is great. The alternative is often handing over your passport to a random shop seller that then does who-knows-what with it before handing over an expensive and easily-lost SIM that usually costs a lot more and only works in one country, and may not be rechargeable.

I tried a few different services before settling on Airalo, which I now use exclusively. Nomad did not work at all. Some others like 3HK or DENT were cheap but unreliable.

Also, using Airalo in China gets you around the great firewall.

Oh, I also use Keepgo for cheap 365-day LTE access on an iPad. It has been reliable.

Although my experience has been good with iPhones, it has not been good with Android phones. This may be related to your experience, or your poor experience may be due to a shaky rollout from a legacy carrier.

For my main phone I will still prefer a normal SIM as the service can be easily transferred if the phone is damaged. Maybe this perception will change as eSIM client-facing features improve.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?

#37

Post by [deleted] »

spike021 wrote: post #14

I've tried travel eSIMs (Ubigi) on a couple of trips to Japan. In my experience compared to when I've gone and used physical SIMs, the reception and coverage wasn't nearly as good. Just super random neighborhoods and areas where the phone just completely drops connections. Even the top of a mountain near Fuji, my eSIM failed completely but my Japanese friends with eSIMs had completely normal and fast service despite…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?

#38

Post by rootusrootus »

FanaHOVA wrote: post #31
blntechie wrote: post #28

I love the convenience of physical SIMs. Will hate the day when I don't have a choice but to 'upgrade' to eSIMs. I have a phone with dual physical SIM card slots. I can go to any country in the world, buy a SIM, put it in, and am up and running. eSIM provisioning at airports is barely available in few coubtries. I broke the display of my phone? Easy, remove the SIM and put it in a spare phone and I can still make and…

You can buy eSIMs before you reach your destination fyi. Used them in Europe and India through Airalo after buying them in the US.

Not sure why you attracted downvotes with that comment. It's 100% correct. You can buy an eSIM while still in the US and just leave it turned off, then flip it on when you get to your destination. Some providers do still advise waiting to install the eSIM until after you reach their home territory, but that's not any more difficult.

We just did exactly this a couple weeks ago when we went to the UK & France. Super easy, as soon as the plane took off I toggled roaming off on my regular US line, and turned on the traveling eSIM when we landed. Bam, phone works as normal, still gets calls and texts, etc, but way cheaper than paying roaming charges.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?

#39

Post by aristus »

A SIM card is an often-overlooked "what you have" second factor, yes leaving aside phone company social engineering hacks.

I made the mistake of buying an iphone on a trip to US, which is eSIM only. The tech works fine --Google Fi is a pretty good example-- but I later traded that phone for the exact same "international" model, traded even plus cash, to get my slot back.

Re: Ask HN: What's Your Experience with eSIMs?

#40

Post by crispyambulance »

I tried eSIM’s for the first time while traveling in Ireland, used Orange on iPhones.

Terrible experience. So confusing. Data worked fine but I had a lot of trouble with everything else. Probably should have taken more time to do it, I researched and bought them on the ride to the airport and then activated upon arrival, jet-lagged and tired.

It’s just too much to go through. And it seemed to take arbitrary amounts of time for configuration changes to work, with no feedback on if what you’re doing is correct or not.

The physical sim days were easier. Oh well I will try again on the next international trip.

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