Go for the Brilliant card!

I am not a technology person, which means that I neither invest my money on electronic products nor my time to learn any adobe programs. But recently something got my interest which is something new and fun to explore. That is called Smart card. I’ve learned that people has been disturbed by the number of cards carried in a wallet including not only credit and debit cards but also membership, loyalty, gift cards. They including myself, carry more than 8 cards in a wallet.  This is really worth to spend!! Luckily, several start ups have been developing a smart card for the contemporary lives such as Coin, Plastc and BrilliantTS. For today’s topic I want to focus on Brilliant smart card in comparison to Coin’s. 

I came across the brilliants website by a luck and learned their Brilliant card items. I have a habit of keeping things simple because I don’t rely on materials so much. Instead I travel a lot, create paintings, watch movies on Netflix, etc. I’ve realized having less gives you more options. Likewise BrilliantTS identified with many of the simplistic life styles and they were willing to provide a solution for cards in wallet. The CEO of Brilliant, Mr. Bae questioned about today’s costumers’ behavior; are the number of cards in your wallet and pocket required? Are they essential to them? He believed in simplicity through smart technology.

So, Brilliant card comes in three types: card M, I and A and the type A has the most suitable technology. To give you a basic idea of the Brilliant card types, the card M is only magnetic stripe while the card I is only IC chip and the card A is both magnetic stripe and IC chip. In this way, magnetic stripe enables swipe to pay system and NFC enables tap to pay system  when making transactions. They say their smart card is secure with EMV chip. Additional feature of Brilliant card is that they alert through smart phone and securely lock down the card to protect your information when you are away from the card.  The magnetic stipe, IC chip are disabled when the card is not in used and completely wipe your card data from your phone when it’s stolen.

Having said that, I am positive that the Brilliant card will provide convenience for us because with the card type A you can almost use it everywhere: you can use it in coffee shops, retailer stores, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs, and as ID cards, reward cards and more. And if it is really safe like they say why not buy one replacing all of the cards in a wallet?

BrilliantTS ,A Korean company is now developing a brand new smart-multi card “Brilliant card”. This All-in-one card will combine all of your cards “credit card, debit card, reward cards” into single card. Similar product is coin card, plastc, swyp.

In this post you will learn about my experience with Coin card that has been a hot issue in the United States and Brilliant card which has been developed in Korea and will be released at the end of 2016. 

2 years ago, I pre-ordered my Coin on kickstarter. I was waiting for so long until finally I got it today. I tried to connect my Coin with my iPhone and registered my 2 favorite cards on it. Coin can store up to 8 cards. It was easy and fast to register the cards.

After I Registered all the cards into my Coin, I went to test it at the coffee shop near my work place. It was my first time using Coin but it didn’t work well as I though. I was really upset. I told the cashier to try swiping Coin slowly. After the cashier tried it for several times, finally it worked. I felt relief that it work at last. However, I don’t really sure now if it is going to work at another places in Korea. I should probably throw this away, 

In the evening, I went to restaurant, another coffee shop and convenience store to test my Coin. It worked but the cashier needed to swipe it for 2 or 3 times.

Besides, it is an unfortunate thing that Coin doesn’t have IC chip on it. Because of Korea is changing magnetic-stripe payment to IC chip payment to prevent magnetic-stripe cloning and plastic card fraud, in near future Coin might not work in Korea at all.

Even now, many of stores only accept IC chip payment. I need to say that Coin is not the only card that I can carry around, it is just another card that I need to add into my wallet. 

What I found is another card called “Brilliant card”. Brilliant card will be released at the end of 2016. How is Brilliant card different from Coin card? 

One of the biggest advantage of Brilliant card is IC chip. Brilliant card has a global standard for credit and debit payment cards based on chip card technology EMV, the three organizations that developed the initial specifications are Europay, Mastercard and Visa.

Moreover, Brilliant card has not only magnetic-stripe and IC chip but also MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) and NFC (Near field communication) functions. Brilliant card has e-paper display which can displays barcode, name, and card information.  

Brilliant card can store credit cards, debit cards, and membership cards, up to 30 cards, while Coin can store only 8 cards.

Main technology of these two smart multi-cards is an electronic magnetic stripe that can be changed on demand. In addition, the key technology of Brilliant card is to place all of the functions “IC chip , BLE, NFC, battery, e- paper and etc.”into a single PCB cards, and after molding and printing the card thickness must not exceed 0.84 mm. BrilliantTS is holding a license of this Ultra Slim Package technology. 

The security features of Brilliant card is similar to Coin. Both of them can syncs with smartphone through low-energy Bluetooth and their own apps. Smartphone can even give a warning when you accidentally leave the cards behind at the coffee shop, the cards will automatically deactivate themselves.

Currently, there are many companies such as Coin, Swype, and Plastic that are developing and launching their smart multi-card. I am really curious how the Brilliant card will enter and successful in the smart multi-card market.  

http://card.brilliantts.com/

info@brilliantts.com