Gadgetory

there are about a million mobile payments apps promising to revolutionize the way I buy things and I've tried just about all of them Google Wallet level up Isis square Wallet PayPal and others let you purchase your daily cup of coffee wirelessly over Bluetooth or NFC but they're all kind of useless because they don't work everywhere I'm MELAS hamburger with average and this is loop loops Hardware lets you pay wirelessly at over 90 percent of existing credit card terminals in the US without retailer is having to do anything is this the mobile payment service I've been asking for loop is a magnetic conductor that emulates the swiping of a magnetic strip credit card at launch loop comes inside a Mophie like charge case for your phone or a square plastic fob you can hook on a keychain or just keep in your pocket after loading your cards into the loop app using a supplied reader you can hold the charge case or fob up to a credit card reader press a button and the reader accepts the transaction as if you'd swipe your credit card it's kind of amazing new craftsmen's magnetic falsies that emily the swiping of the next ride called those are the same magnetic pulses organized the same way as the date on the next ride and the terminal reads it just like the magnetic stripe and therefore we are compatible with any mag stripe reader today expecting the retailer could take expecting a new network to arise is someone optimistic given the history of point of sale where equivalent life cycles are only every 7 years we are not going to see a major change I took a loop charge case in loop Bob around town to see if terminals could read it and of course to see if cashiers would actually let me use it I gave a cashier at the local deli my fob and asked her to hold it against her credit card reader and press the button on its side she was pretty skeptical at first but she tried it and it worked loop worked at a bodega - though the cashier was equally confused it even worked in both taxicabs I tried work better in fact since I didn't even have to convince anyone to let me touch my gadget to their credit card machine both loop devices however were foiled by Subway ticketing machines and ATMs that require you stick card in to trigger a switch which in turn reads the card I'm incredibly impressed by the loop technology but not by its first two form factors the loop fob is the more reliable of the two but it can only transmit one card at a time and at nearly an inch thick it's more annoying the carry around a few credit cards the loot charge case is the more logical form factor since it also charges your phone and doesn't require you to carry around anything extra but its build quality leaves a lot to be desired its plastic body feels much less sturdy than ammo fee and it's also fatter than a mochi even though it's shorter the charge case connects to your phone using bluetooth where you can pick which card you want transmitted at any time inside the loop wallet app so it feels a bit more advanced than the fob neither loop form factor is right for me after all aren't mobile payments about killing the wallet limiting the crap you're carrying around but loot most closely approximates a future where payment tech is truly integrated into our phones and works everywhere and betting this technology in a handset is very easy the core cost relating to the magnetic transmission is well under $1 indeed if the phone is already embedding wireless charging you can reuse a lot of the components used in wireless charging loop shows that even when your tech works on most readers trying to rely on one mobile payment service is still too cumbersome with the big marketing push from Samsung or another top phone maker Luc could become well-known enough that I wouldn't need to explain it to every cashier I run into but for now pretty often I just wanted to pull out my credit card swipe and be done with it even if mobile payment services are smarter are they actually easier to use than a credit card the answer is still no you