Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
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Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
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Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#2> The cards have no battery and aren’t self-powered in any way. Instead, the reader on the gate emits an electromagnetic field that powers the card just long enough to complete the transaction.
Brillant!
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#3Suica was excellent when I had the chance to use it. I used the Apple Pay version and it worked flawlessly. I think I do prefer what I'm seeing more and more in the US with a tap-to-pay so I don't have to learn a new system, but Suica was so universal that I really couldn't complain. Makes sense especially with the larger diversity of digital payment methods and cash prevalence in Japan.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#4One thing that surprised me was that certain ramen and soba shops didn’t accept cards at all and the only non-cash payment option was the IC card.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#5Suica was excellent when I had the chance to use it. I used the Apple Pay version and it worked flawlessly. I think I do prefer what I'm seeing more and more in the US with a tap-to-pay so I don't have to learn a new system, but Suica was so universal that I really couldn't complain. Makes sense especially with the larger diversity of digital payment methods and cash prevalence in Japan.
The really nice advantage of Suica is its speed. Yeah credit card tap to pay is alright, but it's relatively slow, taking multiple seconds.
Now QR code payment seems to be taking off in Japan, but unfortunately you can't access it as a tourist.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#6> The cards have no battery and aren’t self-powered in any way. Instead, the reader on the gate emits an electromagnetic field that powers the card just long enough to complete the transaction. Brillant!
This is how all passive RFID works. It's pretty cool. There's even systems that are both passive and active. For example, as a Disney adult, I'm familiar with their magic bands which do have a battery but also work passively. For tying ride photos automatically to you the battery matters because you're either moving too fast or are too far from the camera for passive to be consistently effective. But for simply using it as payment or a ticket you're pressing the device up against a reader and no matter how old the battery is it'll continue working.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#7I still have my Passmo card from my very first visit to Japan in 2008. I went back in 2018 and it still worked and had a balance. I used it as recently as 2025. Pretty cool!
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#8Suica is incredible, I remember when I first visited Japan in the 2010’s I was amazed at the speed and ubiquity, now in America that tap to pay on transit terminals are becoming more ubiquitous I feel somewhat disappointed at the “lag” I feel compared to the suica transactions
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#9> The cards have no battery and aren’t self-powered in any way. Instead, the reader on the gate emits an electromagnetic field that powers the card just long enough to complete the transaction. Brillant!
This is how all passive RFID works. It's pretty cool. There's even systems that are both passive and active. For example, as a Disney adult, I'm familiar with their magic bands which do have a battery but also work passively. For tying ride photos automatically to you the battery matters because you're either moving too fast or are too far from the camera for passive to be consistently effective. But for simply using…
At a first glance passive RFID would be a perfect match for ride photos, the whole mechanism is ridiculously fast so speed of the ride would not matter much (the technology works at highway speeds just fine) and can work over ~15 meters.
But there are two somewhat significant issues with the radio layer in this application: the geometry of tag antenna is somewhat critical (making it into a band would be problematic) and the back scatter is attenuated by salt water blobs (ie. people) almost perfectly.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#10> The cards have no battery and aren’t self-powered in any way. Instead, the reader on the gate emits an electromagnetic field that powers the card just long enough to complete the transaction. Brillant!
This is how all passive RFID works. It's pretty cool. There's even systems that are both passive and active. For example, as a Disney adult, I'm familiar with their magic bands which do have a battery but also work passively. For tying ride photos automatically to you the battery matters because you're either moving too fast or are too far from the camera for passive to be consistently effective. But for simply using…
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