For me, other than the speed and convenience, I was amazed that I could use my same Suica card (on my iPhone) in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Fukuoka. Even though each region has their own card, they have mutual use in most areas.
Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
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Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#42Huge 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
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Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#43If you get a children’s card, they print your kids name right on it. It’s a nice little souvenir to keep.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#44Wait, 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…
Yes, they do store the value. There was a blogpost posted to HN last year that discusses the cryptographic features of these cards [1,2]. It's amazing that these cards are almost solving the problem of secure digital money.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43993711
[2] working link since original blog is down https://web.archive.org/web/20250517082035/https://aruarian....
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#45If 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.
But you should probably just get a suica in your apple or google wallet, you don’t actually need an IC card. I’m not sure if using a phone makes it less fast though, I couldn’t tell (we had to get a card for my kid since he doesn’t have a phone).
Definitely better than the QR codes used by China.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#46If 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.
But you should probably just get a suica in your apple or google wallet, you don’t actually need an IC card. I’m not sure if using a phone makes it less fast though, I couldn’t tell (we had to get a card for my kid since he doesn’t have a phone). Definitely better than the QR codes used by China.
It doesn't make it less fast! The same model is implemented on the mobile side, which uses the same technology.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#47Sad to see the mascot going in March. Apparently this entire brand reset is tied to something JR East is calling 'Suica Renaissance,' which is about a ten-year effort to turn Suica into a lifestyle brand. Whitepaper: https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/press/2024/pdf/20241210.pdf They're planning on moving beyond the ¥20,000 prepaid balance limit, they are adding QR code payments (think WeChat and Alipay), making Suica work a…
The penguin isn't owned by JR East, which is the problem. It's owned by a specific artist and licensed by Dentsu, who has to approve all usage. The other transit networks actually fully own their mascots, but Suica's Penguin isn't theirs to control.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#48If 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.
The card might be fast but getting one as a tourist is kind of a hassle
Super easy via your Apple wallet
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#49If 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.
But you should probably just get a suica in your apple or google wallet, you don’t actually need an IC card. I’m not sure if using a phone makes it less fast though, I couldn’t tell (we had to get a card for my kid since he doesn’t have a phone). Definitely better than the QR codes used by China.
You can use a digital Suica in Google Wallet only if your Android phone has Japan-spec hardware . International Android phones bought outside Japan generally cannot support digital Suica cards in Google Wallet.
Re: Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
#50The FeliCa NFC standard made its way into more than just transit cards in Japan. One notable user is the Amusement IC network, which lets you quickly log into arcade games across multiple manufacturers using a single card. Some implementations (Konami's e-amusement most notably) even go as far as to allow any FeliCa-compatible card or device to be linked to a profile, including transit cards, phones (with no app required!) and certain models of Sony Bluetooth earbuds which use FeliCa for quick pairing.