Garmin Pay

Former Member over 7 years ago

Anyone know if Garmin Pay is expected to come to the Fenix 5X? That would be really nice to have.

0 tmk2 over 7 years ago

Most certainly not, because the F5 lacks NFC hardware.

I don't think it'll come fo Fenix 5X. Actually BLE/ANT+ chip supports some level of NFC but I think just acts as a receiver and don't know how actually NFC and payment system works. Also NFC tags have some long copper coil antennas and Fenix 5X don't have them...

0 chunkywizard over 7 years ago

Please post a Link to a BLE/ANT chip that supports NFC...they don?t. Also antennae can be small but the larger they are the better the range is. Anyway, bottom line it?s a good guess the F5 doesn?t have the hardware in as I can?t see Garmin adding cost into the BOM without using it on launch. If someone has a tear down then it would be easy to work out.

0 schlupp73 over 7 years ago

i would guess one could use the RF52840 from Nordic Semiconductor (the RF52810 does not, RF52832 seems to be limited in NFC features)

https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/nRF52840
On-chip NFC tag

NFC?-A tag support is included on chip. NFC Type 2 and Type 4 tag emulation protocol stacks are provided by Nordic opening up a range of new applications, like NFC payment, and improved user experience for existing BLE applications with Out-of-Band (OOB) pairing. OOB pairing using NFC simplifies the process of authenticated pairing between two Bluetooth devices by exchanging authentication information over an NFC link

don't know if newer protocol stacks are hardware independent and could be rolled out to other NFC devices.

some link about the partnership of Garmin and Nordic Semiconductor:

http://www.nordicsemi.com/News/News-releases/Product-Related-News/Garmin-s-first-child-activity-monitor-uses-a-Nordic-Semiconductor-nRF52832-SoC-and-will-be-showcased-on-Nordic-s-booth-at-CES-in-January

0 chunkywizard over 7 years ago

Good find, I was unaware of that. It's only tag emulation, so that wouldn't be good enough for the Garmin pay type of payment. Just done a bit of reading and for mobile payment you need an NFC controller, compliant with loads of standards eg EMV (https://www.emvco.com/) and there isn't a solution I could find with it integrated into a BLE SOC. The new Fitbit uses an NXP device (see https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/08/fitbit-ionic-gps-smartwatch-all-the-details.html for a tear-down). I'm guessing the Vivosmart 3 uses something similar.

0 schlupp73 over 7 years ago

At least Nordic demonstrated on CES that they can do mobile payment with there HW/SW ecosystem that i think is used by the Garmin wareable platform:

http://www.nordicsemi.com/News/News-...ts-at-CES-2017

Among the exhibits is a demonstration of how Nordic?s nRF52 Series Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) are increasingly being used at the heart of wearable contactless payment technology. The demonstration shows a Bluetooth low energy wearable using the nRF52832 SoC?s Near Field Communication (NFC) interface for payment.

i think they did implement GArmin Pay with and on top of the S332 SoftDevice v4.0.2 API or something similar. So at least it could have a major impact on older firmwares.

0 chunkywizard over 7 years ago

That looks like closed loop payment to me, rather than credit card emulation.