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Coin Card Teardown

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Re: Coin Card Teardown

#51

Post by JoblessWonder »

rio517 wrote: post #44
lvs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like just another startup hardware offering with a spotty launch. But I've always been confused about the perceived "embarrassment" of a card not working at the point of a transaction. This seems to be a common marketing trope in payments, but I don't know what it comes from. It's a piece of technology, and tech often doesn't work quite right. Sometimes my phone restarts itself. What's the big deal?

I have been super broke and unable to pay bills at two points in my life - just out of college and trying to find a job after the dot-come bust, and again when my startup failed. During those bad times, I'd lose track of my finances and a few times couldn't pay for my groceries. I can't describe in words how much I felt like a total, utter failure. All the fears I had about how I was going to pay my bills that month,…

I've been there too and my wife (who is also the first college graduate in her family) has it worse than me. The fact that you know it isn't a "technical glitch" but might be the "human glitch" of not having the money in your account is the big difference I think. It is embarrassing to go and pay for gas or groceries and have it be declined because you can't pay for it at that moment for whatever reason. (I think that with the advent of mobile banking this isn't as much of an issue, because you can check your live balance before you go shopping.)

I know plenty of friends who can't (for one reason or another) imagine what life would be like where their credit card is declined due to a "human error." Maybe they haven't had to live paycheck to paycheck or maybe their brains aren't wired that way. I'm inclined to lean to the former but I'm sure for some it is the latter.

Re: Coin Card Teardown

#52

Post by ceequof » 

  The specs aren’t listed on the FDK site but the safety 
  data sheet shows it is a 3V battery although amperage is 
  unclear.
All lithium-ion batteries have a nominal voltage of 3.7V, like how all alkaline batteries have a nominal voltage of 1.5V. It's just how the chemistry works.

(Actual voltage can vary quite a bit, depending on where you are in the discharge curve: http://i.stack.imgur.com/UkodS.gif)

And to be somewhat needlessly pedantic: you want "amp-hours" there, not "amperage". Amp-hours is the unit of capacity, amps is how much current is being drawn at that very moment. In the automotive metaphor, amp-hours (or watt-hours) is how big the gas tank is, while amperage is engine horsepower.

Re: Coin Card Teardown

#53

Post by gambiting »

fluidcruft wrote: post #22
myth_buster wrote: post #6

I'm curious to know whether given proliferation of the NFC alternatives available now like Apple/Google Pay is there a problem that Coin Card addresses which the former don't. Is paying in the restaurants one of those use case or will we see table side point-of-payments in near future which would make it obsolete.

For what it's worth, all of my banks have already replaced my credit cards with chip-and-pin capable ones in preparation for October's rebalancing of fraud liability between merchants and banks. I can't imagine merchants will be too keen to accept these Coin cards.

Pretty much nobody accepts signature-only cards in UK, it's all chip and pin now. I am sure US will follow suit soon.

Re: Coin Card Teardown

#54

Post by stephengillie »

mbreese wrote: post #41
stephengillie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, magnetic swipe readers are EVERYwhere. And the collection of credit and debit networks connect every reader with almost every bank. It "just works" everywhere, and it's "impossible" for a retailer to be unable to connect to your bank. -Chip-and-pin? The card reader probably can't read it. -Apple/Google wallet and similar services? The card reader probably doesn't have an antenna for it. (Especially small…

Mag stripe readers are everywhere, but the banks have already started migrating over to chip and pin cards (with mag-stripe for backwards compatibility) for new issues. There are still older cards out there that won't expire for probably ~5 years or so, so I expect to see mag stripe readers around for at least that long. But it's fair to call it deprecated, even in the US. However, the transition is coming to the US…

If my bank (credit union) has transitioned to chip-and-pin, they have done so without telling me.

The cards they issue are pressed at the main branch; I had to wait while they printed my latest card. The process they use to print doesn't emboss the card - the little numbers don't stick up - and as such they have nearly rubbed off from the card.

I got that most recent card in September of 2012, and it's already wearing out; the magnetic stripe hasn't been reliable for 6 months, and the numbers are so worn off the front that cashiers have trouble hand-entering it. It doesn't even have the Mastercard NFC antenna.

I really, really doubt that most of the USA's banks are anywhere near ready for a transition.

Re: Coin Card Teardown

#55

Post by deegles »

Does cloning your card to a Coin make you liable for fraudulent transactions? I assume it would be against the ToS for most cards to allow cloning.

Re: Coin Card Teardown

#56

Post by Domenic_S »

rio517 wrote: post #44
lvs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like just another startup hardware offering with a spotty launch. But I've always been confused about the perceived "embarrassment" of a card not working at the point of a transaction. This seems to be a common marketing trope in payments, but I don't know what it comes from. It's a piece of technology, and tech often doesn't work quite right. Sometimes my phone restarts itself. What's the big deal?

I have been super broke and unable to pay bills at two points in my life - just out of college and trying to find a job after the dot-come bust, and again when my startup failed. During those bad times, I'd lose track of my finances and a few times couldn't pay for my groceries. I can't describe in words how much I felt like a total, utter failure. All the fears I had about how I was going to pay my bills that month,…

I can relate to your feeling, and this ONE WEIRD TRICK will greatly increase your positive feelings: get a credit card with no fees that you pay off every month. Once I got my Amex, I never again wondered if that swipe would go through -- it just does, every time. That of course comes with its own set of problems (ahem, budgeting).

Re: Coin Card Teardown

#57

Post by Domenic_S »

mbreese wrote: post #41
stephengillie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, magnetic swipe readers are EVERYwhere. And the collection of credit and debit networks connect every reader with almost every bank. It "just works" everywhere, and it's "impossible" for a retailer to be unable to connect to your bank. -Chip-and-pin? The card reader probably can't read it. -Apple/Google wallet and similar services? The card reader probably doesn't have an antenna for it. (Especially small…

Mag stripe readers are everywhere, but the banks have already started migrating over to chip and pin cards (with mag-stripe for backwards compatibility) for new issues. There are still older cards out there that won't expire for probably ~5 years or so, so I expect to see mag stripe readers around for at least that long. But it's fair to call it deprecated, even in the US. However, the transition is coming to the US…

Yep, my latest Amex came with a chip, and when I tried to swipe the mag strip at WalMart (don't you judge me) the reader actually said "Must insert card" which was really confusing until I noticed it had a chip reader. Pretty cool.

Re: Coin Card Teardown

#58

Post by dboreham »

fluidcruft wrote: post #22
myth_buster wrote: post #6

I'm curious to know whether given proliferation of the NFC alternatives available now like Apple/Google Pay is there a problem that Coin Card addresses which the former don't. Is paying in the restaurants one of those use case or will we see table side point-of-payments in near future which would make it obsolete.

For what it's worth, all of my banks have already replaced my credit cards with chip-and-pin capable ones in preparation for October's rebalancing of fraud liability between merchants and banks. I can't imagine merchants will be too keen to accept these Coin cards.

Are you sure? I ask because the majority of US card issuers have opted to use chip&signature, not chip&pin cards. In my wallet I only have one chip&pin card (Well Fargo). The rest are chip&signature. Whether or not they send you a PIN is a good indicator of which auth method the card supports.

Re: Coin Card Teardown

#59

Post by leni536 »

urda wrote: post #40
Nursie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite deprecated in the USA, yet. Just nearly everywhere else...

Except when you're the top country by economic standards the "everywhere else" has zero weight. Thus why it's still the standard.

>Except when you're the top country by economic standards the "everywhere else" has zero weight.

That's really ignorant. Bank card security sucks enough without mag stripes (I'm looking at you, online payment). Really, magstripes need to die.

Re: Coin Card Teardown

#60

Post by mbreese »

stephengillie wrote: post #54
mbreese wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mag stripe readers are everywhere, but the banks have already started migrating over to chip and pin cards (with mag-stripe for backwards compatibility) for new issues. There are still older cards out there that won't expire for probably ~5 years or so, so I expect to see mag stripe readers around for at least that long. But it's fair to call it deprecated, even in the US. However, the transition is coming to the US…

If my bank (credit union) has transitioned to chip-and-pin, they have done so without telling me. The cards they issue are pressed at the main branch; I had to wait while they printed my latest card. The process they use to print doesn't emboss the card - the little numbers don't stick up - and as such they have nearly rubbed off from the card. I got that most recent card in September of 2012, and it's already wearin…

I got a new card (2 years early) to replace a card with an NFC chip. This was Wells Fargo, so bigger than a credit union. I got the replacement, but my wife didn't. I originally had an NFC card, whereas she didn't. I think that the fact that the first NFC translation in a long time was made a few weeks earlier at an airport may have had something to do with the timing.

Regardless, the changeover has already started. It may take a few years to be complete, but the writing is on the wall.

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