So, I got my Starling card, and can confirm that Samsung pay works well with Starling. Just remember to turn on the ‘Mobile Wallet’ in their app before trying to setup Samsung pay (otherwise it will fail). Not tried it from phone, only from watch. At the moment I will run the two side-by-side, paying from the watch, and just leave the Starling card at home.
The Starling debit card is an odd creation. With its 16-digit number on the reverse rather than the front, and number+text just printed, not embossed like Monzo, it feels like one of those prepaid ‘voucher cards’. I know that some outfits will refuse non-embossed cards (eg for hire cars) as they are more easily copied.
Anyway Monzo, if you really are serious about growth then you will need to cover more bases. Android wear is all-but dead. The only Android-supporting smartwatch worth having comes from Samsung and will likely never support Android Pay - only Samsung Pay.
It was the size of the Ticwatch Pro combined with the slowness of the OS, ancient Wear 2100 processor and subsequent poor battery life that put me off. The 2 screens a great idea, but it needs newer hardware. Back in September, Qualcomm unveiled the Wear 3100 Platform (also pretty ancient in terms of internal tech compared to Samsung and Apple, but an improvement nonetheless) - unfortunately, the 3100 has only found its way into a couple of (expensive) watches thus far. Apple is so so far ahead in this game, but I just cant bring myself to go Apple - I would miss the versatility of my Note 9 far too much. The Wear platform requires google to take an interest in the shape of a Pixel Watch.
Fossil Sport runs WearOS on the new Snapdragon 3100 chip. I may sell my LG Watch Style and get one of these to replace it.
I do think there’s a good chance we’ll see a Pixel Watch in 2019 though.
As for Samsung Pay… We haven’t committed to it at this stage, but support for other NFC payment methods in general (Samsung, Fitbit, Garmin) is certainly something we’ll evaluate in the future.
Interestingly there seemed to be more demand for Fitbit Pay in the recent poll, but all data will be looked at.
Our original development plan for NFC that led to us building out Apple Pay and Google Pay was solely based around people being able to use their phones to pay for things. The fact that the implementations also work on Apple and Google watches was just a bonus.
So, other smartwatch platforms like Tizen, or people wanting to use another NFC payment system out of personal preference weren’t things we were able to account for at that time.
I wonder why only 4% of people voted for this out of all the other features. Is Samsung Pay a “nice to have” so not really that important when looking at the bigger picture?
Yes, Google Pay can be used on Samsung phones, but it’s missing some features that Samsung Pay offers (see linked post). Samsung smartwatches on the other hand cannot use GPay, as there is no GPay app for Tizen OS.
Anarchist
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I’m not surprised by the figure.
iOS users wouldn’t vote for it.
Non-Samsung owning Android users wouldn’t vote for it.
An unknown proportion of Samsung owning Android users don’t use Samsung Pay, so wouldn’t vote for it.
Monzo know how many Samsung users they have, I guess, and so can make a decision on whether to build the service.
So to summarise what you’re saying, this feature wouldn’t be useful for the majority of people?
I was just curious as to why it was such a low figure when this topic has been around for well over a year and keeps getting resurrected with some strong supporters. For example, I’ve now seen a few people threatening to leave Monzo over it!
It seems that everyone has missed an opportunity to show Monzo just how important it is to them, which is a shame
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Anarchist
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Certainly not the majority of Monzo customers, maybe not even the majority of Samsung users.
I’ve been on this forum for over a year, and for most of that time people have been asking for Samsung Pay, and it appears that Monzo have no plans to offer it in the near term.
Monzo will probably decide to offer it when the balance between available engineering time/cost and benefit to the business makes sense. While forum users’ opinions may be taken into consideration, I doubt that Monzo will base the decision on what some (any idea how many?) forum users ask for.
As The Libertines said, “Never say never, and never say never again.”
I don’t know enough about Samsung Pay and I have one of their phones I was just as shocked as @max.darby to find that they don’t run Android and therefore don’t have Google Pay
The only other thing to consider is how many Monzo users own a Samsung Wearable that supports Samsung Pay.
They work with all Android phones (not just Samsung) and iPhones. I don’t think Monzo can get stats for this without research.
If Apple Pay didn’t “just work” on the Apple Watch, I feel with the number of requests and complaints, Monzo would implement it.
It’s definitely better to let Monzo know you want it so they can properly prioritise things (even if they have no plans currently). It may mean a lot to some people.