alt Hacker NewsIf 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.
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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 appears to be based on NFC-F with latency under 200 ms, called FeliCa. Similar to regular NFC at around 300 ms latency plus any network times.
It has really surprised me a few times.
It reminds me of that oft touted experiment where a light lit up within some number of milliseconds of a person hitting a button, and people perceive it as happening before they hit the button.
Same deal with Opal in Sydney - the old school opal card processes a second or so faster than a card/apple pay/google pay that you can just keep walking. Smashed into the barrier the one time I forgot my card.
The card might be fast but getting one as a tourist is kind of a hassle
That was not my experience in Japan; I found that it still took a second to go through every time, just like in New York/etc.
Pleasant alternative from a lot of US transit systems, eg BART int eh Bay Area which is the most customer-hostile service I'eve ever used. giant gates that seem right out of a dystopian science-fiction movie, an achingly slow card readers which absolutely force you to break stride no matter how ready you are. Add in the extremely unhelpful station attendants and you've got a recipe for a public transport service that people actively avoid if they possibly can. Then they turn around and ask for voters to approve extra tax money. I'm convinced none of the people on the BART board actually use the service.
+1 you can walk through the subway turnstile and not slow down.
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It's not only magically fast, but it's super useful. You can use it at vending machines + convenience stores anywhere (unless it's one of those old ones that only take cash/coins and print paper tickets) and at the shops as well.
People not in Japan/Singapore/Korea/China should experience what a proper transit card done looks like.