Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card • Hacker News Board

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#21

Post by rwmj » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

Wait, the balance is stored on the card? I'm fairly sure the balance is shown in the JR app too, so presumably that cannot be the case. [Update: or maybe not? I opened the app now and it's asking me to enable NFC and hold it up to the card.]

Anyway I love my Suica. I got it a good decade or more ago, I have a few thousand yen on there, and it's always ready for me when I go back to Japan. Useful on the Metro, trains and in shops. Easy to top up at the plentiful, dedicated top up machines. I also loaded Shinkansen tickets on it last time and travelled "ticketless".

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#22

Post by rwmj » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

usrnm wrote: post #14

taeric wrote: post #12

Huge shout out that if you are going to be in Japan, you need one of these cards. I had thought I could just buy a two day pass in Tokyo. Which, you can, but you are almost certainly going to be limited to what routes and lines you can use, then. Which is brutal when you can't tell google maps which card you have.

What happened to buying a single ticket at the station, when you need one? That's what I did when I was in Tokyo, but it was a long time ago

You can do that, but the card is far more convenient and journeys are cheaper too.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#23

Post by reaperducer » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:18 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #21

Wait, the balance is stored on the card? I'm fairly sure the balance is shown in the JR app too, so presumably that cannot be the case. [Update: or maybe not? I opened the app now and it's asking me to enable NFC and hold it up to the card.] Anyway I love my Suica. I got it a good decade or more ago, I have a few thousand yen on there, and it's always ready for me when I go back to Japan. Useful on the Metro, trains…

I'm fairly sure the balance is shown in the app too

Can confirm that Suica shows the balance in Apple Wallet.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#24

Post by clifdweller » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

usrnm wrote: post #14

taeric wrote: post #12

Huge shout out that if you are going to be in Japan, you need one of these cards. I had thought I could just buy a two day pass in Tokyo. Which, you can, but you are almost certainly going to be limited to what routes and lines you can use, then. Which is brutal when you can't tell google maps which card you have.

What happened to buying a single ticket at the station, when you need one? That's what I did when I was in Tokyo, but it was a long time ago

yeah they still have the ticket stations next to the one to refill/buy IC cards. and thanks to the 20/21 Olympics in english now too(not 2 levels of menus deep like many of them used to be) so pretty easy to do

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#25

Post by santaboom » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #21

Wait, the balance is stored on the card? I'm fairly sure the balance is shown in the JR app too, so presumably that cannot be the case. [Update: or maybe not? I opened the app now and it's asking me to enable NFC and hold it up to the card.] Anyway I love my Suica. I got it a good decade or more ago, I have a few thousand yen on there, and it's always ready for me when I go back to Japan. Useful on the Metro, trains…

Op mentions that server side sync occurs outside of 200ms card/reader interaction.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#26

Post by reaperducer » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #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!

> 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!

AT&T showed this in television commercials back in the 1980's.

"Can you go through a toll booth without stopping? You will. And the company that will bring it to you is AT&T."

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#27

Post by clifdweller » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

jacobgkau wrote: post #18

trzy wrote: post #7

I 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!

It's a bit of a shame that the long-term "wow" factor has been somewhat negated by the new tourist cards that expire after four weeks ("Welcome Suica" and "Passmo Passport"). It looks like you can get the regular cards everywhere again if you want now, but when I visited in early 2024, there was a months-long shortage of regular cards going on,* so the airports only had those temporary cards available, meaning a whol…

The joys of single supplier most likely. Probably contracted to provide 1 mil a year or something then if tourism greater than that have the "disposable" ones... doesn't need to be any hardware difference though a simple time limited cards get activated with expiration date and server auto permanent inactivates them.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#28

Post by Conan_Kudo » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #13

When you pay with Suica, the merchant pays a transaction fee of between 2 to 3.2%, similar to a credit card. That's surprising. IC cards are so universally and cheerfully accepted that I assumed they had no per-transaction costs. Compare the US, where merchants can be surly about card payments.

There's a mindset difference. People are more willing to pay to reduce inconvenience for customers there, whereas here the inconvenience to the merchant sometimes matters more.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#29

Post by ink_13 » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

ben1040 wrote: post #11

It's a bummer that while Google Wallet on Android phones supports Suica, they only offer the feature if the device was sold originally in Japan. Presumably they didn't want to pay Sony the licensing fees for the technology on non-JP devices. iPhones have it worldwide, so a visitor to Japan can use Apple Pay to stand up a card and fund it.

It's not just a patent fee, IC-card support takes special hardware that enables the low latency of the transaction. Only Android phones sold in Japan (including Pixels) get it installed at manufacturing.

Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card

#30

Post by spot5010 » Thu, Aug 27, 2026, 5:28 PM UTC

cptcobalt wrote: post #20

If you haven’t experienced suica, it’s like magically fast. Faster than NFC, faster than Apple Pay, faster than tap to pay, faster than Disney magic bands, faster than your work badge. It absolutely floored me every time I used it in Japan and it’s a full payment transaction.

+1 you can walk through the subway turnstile and not slow down.