I pre-ordered Coin and have signed up for the beta and while this card seems to be much cooler (and 3x more expensive) I feel like Coin has a better chance of making it to market. Their idea and product just seems more "do-able" than this.
It's easy to throw up a list of tech specs on a website, it's a lot harder to actually ship those features. I'm highly skeptical of their support for chip-and-pin. In my (uneducated on this matter) mind it seems like the ability to do this undermines a large security consideration with chip-and-pin. What's to stop a crook from swiping my card on his reader? Does this not just make it all the easier to clone cards?
Also the battery life is an annoyance. Not one that I couldn't live with (I look at my Pebble and Pulse battery levels every few days to determine if I need to plug it up at night) but Coin's approach to this problem seems cleaner. Coin was a reach for me, this is way out of what I would spend to "fix" this problem. Also as other's have said with Apple Pay entering the fray Coin is rapidly losing its appeal as neither Coin nor this card offer the consumer protection that Apple Pay does (like not giving them your real CC number).
Coin doesn't handle the chip and pin problem at all for the moment. Even they say that the next version of the card will work with chip and pin. As far as the battery is concerned, Coin will just stop working after two years. At least with this card, it will be rechargeable, even if I have to do it monthly.
My biggest concern would be pre-ordering anything like this for the time being. I was left pretty jaded with Coin promising for a year that they were running on time with shipping. Summer 2014 came and went and they finally admitted just two weeks after the previous update that they wouldn't be able to make it for at least another 6 months. Now this product is advertising a more advanced feature set to be released at around the same time. I wouldn't bet on it.
I too am jaded by Coin's delays (though after a year of Soylent delays, each one promising delivery "next month", I guess I should know better). As for the battery life I really don't expect to still be using the same Coin in 2 years. I imagine I will have an upgraded Chip & Pin version or just be using Apple Pay by then. I fear that all of these card-replacement solutions will be downed out by things like Apple Pay (I assume other companies will introduce competing services, and no Google Wallet is not a competing service IMHO). I might be able to get a Coin refund but I'm not a huge fan of pulling funding from them (even if it's only $50) and I still think it's a nifty idea. I'm still very much so looking forward to getting my Coin sometime in December (supposed to ship by the end of November), that is of course if they stick to that timetable.
It's easy to throw up a list of tech specs on a website, it's a lot harder to actually ship those features. I'm highly skeptical of their support for chip-and-pin. In my (uneducated on this matter) mind it seems like the ability to do this undermines a large security consideration with chip-and-pin. What's to stop a crook from swiping my card on his reader? Does this not just make it all the easier to clone cards?
Also the battery life is an annoyance. Not one that I couldn't live with (I look at my Pebble and Pulse battery levels every few days to determine if I need to plug it up at night) but Coin's approach to this problem seems cleaner. Coin was a reach for me, this is way out of what I would spend to "fix" this problem. Also as other's have said with Apple Pay entering the fray Coin is rapidly losing its appeal as neither Coin nor this card offer the consumer protection that Apple Pay does (like not giving them your real CC number).