Contactless in Austin: The future is here

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I spent the last 7 days using a Samsung Galaxy S4 phone equipped with NFC and the Isis mobile wallet to pay for a lot of things. Sponsored by Gemalto as part of their Contactless Challenge, I got pretty comfortable using the phone to pay for things like meals, haircuts, movies and more. Over the course of those seven days, I had no issues using this new technology.

Going into the challenge I had reservations about any of this working. To say that my expectations were low is an understatement. So why would I agree to do this challenge if I thought the technology would fail? Good question. I think I really wanted to believe it would work, I love the idea of being able to leave my wallet at home and only carry my smartphone. It would be liberating. I’m also passionate about technology and an early adopter of things. I’m okay with something is rough around the edges.

For the challenge I used an Android phone which had NFC built-in.  My own personal phone is an iPhone 5 which does not support NFC.  There are plans to produce a snap on case which supports the capabilities and features required to make NFC work on the iPhone.  I got to play around with a prototype during the Whole Foods challenge and it worked perfectly.  I’m all over that when they release it which hopefully will be soon.

This is an iPhone 4 inside a special case which gives it NFC and Contactless Payment support.

This is an iPhone 4 inside a special case which gives it NFC and Contactless Payment support.

When I was at Whole Foods, one of the cashiers mentioned that the American Express cards which have wireless chips in them process very slowly. She thought the Isis enabled phones were the fastest form of payment that a customer could use. They go through very quickly. I agreed.

This technology is ready for mainstream. In fact the only real thing holding it back is that not all merchants accept it. I see that changing over time as merchants upgrade their credit card terminals to ones that support wireless forms of payment. This will happen automatically but it could take a while before it is ubiquitous. Until then its like trying to use a Diner Club Card. Nobody really accepts it.

The stakes are high for wireless payment.   Companies like Google and Square are also trying to own a share of this market with their own solutions.  If I had to bet now I’d say that Isis is the standard that we’ll all be using a few years from now.  Maybe even sooner.

Contactless in Austin: buying flowers for Stefi

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I bought my flowers for Stefi using Contactless payment.  It was my first purchase using my phone as a wireless payment device.  The entire process was simple, I launched the ISIS mobile wallet app on my phone, entered my secure pin, held it over the point of sale terminal and boom, payment complete.  I created this video on vine documenting the experience:

Contactless in Austin: Adding money to my phone

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The Gemalto Contactless Challenge starts tomorrow morning at 6am and if I plan to buy anything with my phone I better put some money in it.  (On it?)  One of the great things about this challenge is that Gemalto is giving us their money to spend.  The funds arrived this weekend in the form of a prepaid Green Dot MoneyPak card.

MoneyPak + other free offers loaded into the Isis Wallet

MoneyPak + other free offers loaded into the Isis Wallet

The Verizon Isis Mobile Wallet is an electronic wallet that holds all of your payment sources including a built in Visa Debit card.  You can add funds to this card via a variety of sources including prepaid cards that you buy at stores like Walmart   Activating this card and then loading the prepaid funds into it was straight forward and all worked quickly and painlessly.  I simply took debit card ID and entered it into the MoneyPak website along with the prepaid card ID and within seconds everything was transferred into the phone.  I could see the new balance and I’m ready to go.

I was actually surprised that any of this worked but that could be my own prejudice from recently transferring money into Dwolla and then into MT.Gox to buy some bitcoins all right as the US government shut down Dwolla as a funding source and then Liberty Reserve for laundering money.  But I digress.

Transferring funds from a prepaid card into my phone.

Transferring funds from a prepaid card into my phone.

With JPMorgan Chase, Visa and the other heavy weight financial institutions all part of the Isis consortium I think its safe to say that this is a legit service.  Security is one of the big benefits of using the Isis mobile wallet and I’m for sure going to talk more about it in the coming week.

For now, I’m all set for the challenge.  I’ve got a breakfast meeting this morning with one of the founders of Indeed and I’m going to try to pay for it using the Isis mobile wallet.  In the history of me, I’ve ever paid for anything using my smartphone as a wallet so I’m excited about this technological first.   Like my first tweet it will likely be a memory that will stay with me forever.  My first tweet BTW was about taking care of my daughter Jenny on March 26th 2007:

Contest winner Meritful now part of Capital Factory ecosystem

Great Statesman article about Meritful a new Capital Factory incubator company and winner of our “Move your startup to Austin for free” contest from SXSW.

Capital Factory is the center of Austin’s startups scene

Lori Hawkins from the Austin American Statesman wrote a great piece about how Capital Factory has become the center of Austin’s startup scene.  I’m grateful for the opportunity to be part of it all.

 

Austin vs Salt Lake City in Gemalto Contactless Challenge

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Josh Kerr

Game face on

Gemalto a multi-billion dollar company that you’ve likely never heard of is sponsoring a wireless payment challenge pitting me and my city of Austin vs Kathy and her city of Salt Lake City.  Both Austin and SLC are piloting a new NFC payment technology from ISIS which uses a mobile wallet on your phone to wirelessly pay for things at participating retail stores.  The challenge will award points to Kathy and I as we use our phones to pay for things.

My competition: Kathy

My competition: Kathy from Salt Lake City

The challenge is called “Contactless” because your phone is able to make payments via the NFC wireless protocol.  I think this means that I can hold my phone near a supporting credit card reader and it will pay for things just like swiping my credit card.  An app called the Isis Mobile Wallet holds my credit cards, gift cards and other funding sources and  transforms my phone into a glorified wireless credit card.

Gemalto invited me to participate in the challenge encouraging me to share my experiences whether good or bad.  They are looking for authentic feedback and in return they will make a donation to a charity of my choice.  (This week its save the tigers.)  They will fill up my phone with $250 and I will be buying food, getting haircuts, sending flowers and much more which I will be sharing through Twitter, Vine, Instagram, Facebook and my blog.

Gemalto provided me with a brand new Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone which I’m actually digging.  I’m an iPhone 5 owner with a strong affinity (or loyalty) for Apple’s products, I even co-founded and sold a company based on their technology.  Android in my eyes has always seemed less polished and lacking design flare.   This Galaxy S4 is making me rethink how I feel about Android.  This phone is super slick, fast and polished.

My Galaxy S4 with Verizon Isis Wallet

My new Samsung Galaxy S4 with Verizon Isis Wallet

I’m going into the challenge with low expectations for the technology.  Contactless payment isn’t an easy thing to do requiring participation from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Chase, American Express all working together on a very complex stack.  Getting a telco like Verizon to do something cutting edge is like trying to get a rattle snake to use a hula hoop.  Who knows, maybe it all works and I ditch my wallet for it.  Either way, I’m going to take down Kathy and her Salt Lake City by outspending her with my mobile wallet.

Hey Kathy, hear that?  Its the ka-ching sound you’ll be hearing from my smartphone as I wirelessly outspend ya.

Hardware is in season

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Hardware seems to be back in season. Several of the startup’s I’ve seen come through Capital Factory have innovated with hardware and some of it is pretty cool. Hardware is not an easy cookie to bake so it is unusual for a startup to go for it.

This past weekend I was a judge at AngelHack and one of the startups created the printer in the video below:

Creating hardware is cheaper than ever thanks to innovations like the Raspberry Pi which is a lowcost programable computer. With startups willing to take chances on prototypes and programs like Kickstarter that allow entrepreneurs the ability to test the market, it is a perfect season for creating hardware.