calherewecome

Maybe you’ve heard of a device called “Coin” or maybe not. “Coin” is a device being developed by some folks in San Francisco. The concept is the device that will save account information of up to eight credit or debit cards and can be used like a credit or debit card at any Point of Sale credit card terminal or ATM. It works in conjunction with a mobile app to load the credit card information including account number, expiration date, security code and account owner’s name and so forth. Here’s the link to the “Coin” web site. And here is a picture of the device.

Okay, so far so good. I get it. I can carry one card instead of eight. Lightens up the amount of plastic I carry in my pocket. Sounds like a laudable goal.

So when I heard about it last fall, I bit the bullet and signed up. The company is partially funded by crowd source funding. Never heard of “Crowd Source Funding”? Click here for the wikipedia entry. That is, I send them my $50, and they promise to send one of the devices some time in the future. So a lot of people signed up. The company hasn’t said how much money was raised, but I believe it was significant.

So are there any drawbacks to the design? Two big ones that I can think of. First, it has a battery inside. Batteries go dead after a while. Coin website says the battery lasts for two years. Then you have to buy a new coin. By that time there ought to be a Coin 2.0 available. Perhaps it will support loading more cards, chip and pin, longer battery life? Who knows.

Second, the credit card technology used in the US is called “Chip and Signature”. The technology rapidly being adopted is called “Chip and Pin”. This technology is considered more secure. The “Coin” does not support “Chip and Pin”. So don’t expect it to work in Europe. Maybe some day it will be supported but not now

So back in November (November 15 to be exact) I forked over $50. The company said that the device would start shipping by the summer of 2014. Every once and a while, I would get an email with current status of development. So the summer has pretty much come and gone. The IOS app appeared as scheduled on 8/28. (The Android version is scheduled for 9/25) So I downloaded the app.  Actually it took a while to find. When you do a search for “Coin” you get about a couple of thousand hits. But never no mind.

I guess I should have known, when someone is vague about delivery dates using terms like spring or summer. I of course was hoping for June. Coin was obviously thinking end of summer. 

Recent emails from coin, have been telling me that delivery will be delayed as well as a second beta for 15,000 devices, with production quality devices shipping in Spring of 2015. Perhaps their idea of Spring is next September. I am not holding my breath. 

So the 2nd beta is for 15,000 devices going to the first 15,000 folks who signed up. The IOS app was to tell you when your device would ship (ie. are you in the beta or not?) The app says my coin would ship Spring 2015. I am not happy about that. And I fear that their scheduling is overly optimistic. I would not be surprise that additional delays could happen.

I could ask for my money back. My suspicion that would take quite a while. Besides, the money is already spent. I might as well settle down and wait.

One more thing. If after reading all of the above and you are still interested in pre-ordering one, use the following link to order. I get a $5 referral bonus credit. 

This entry was posted on August 29, 2014 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Reviews, Technology. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Apps, Coin, tech, technology