nio Card - The world's first Bitcoin payment smartcard on Kickstarter

[No_2]

Being involved in helping a number of UK Bitcoin start-ups I've been approached by bluenio about their nio Card.

They are producing a hardware wallet. I chatted through an overview of the design with one of the developers and it seems a pretty good design and sensible about the cryptographic aspect of doing transactions and exposing private keys.

They are running a kickstarter here:

    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1459210729/nio-card-a-smart-card-which-upgrades-your-phone-an

If you interested please take a look and show your support.

[ZeWaren]

I guess a better support of HCE with Android 4.4 will allow tons of bitcoin related NFC related apps and ideas.

[benjamindees]

From a cursory glance, I don't like this design at all.  It's too complicated.  It's too big.  It's too expensive.  Is it waterproof?  Why does it require a smartphone to use?  Why does it need USB and bluetooth?  Why does it need 2 gigs of memory and a battery?  What's the advantage?  Is this thing a Bitcoin payment card or a child tracking device?  Jesus, choose one.

[crazy_rabbit]

It's cool, but it's not the "worlds first bitcoin smartcard". Even a brief search here in the forums would show that there have already been bitcoin smartcards. In particular the Elet (or Elnet- I forgot the spelling) which appears to be smaller then the nio card as well. I've held it in person and it's just like a credit card, with a display and everything.

[bitcoinpsftp]

I'm confused.  I watched the whole video and they didn't mention bitcoin even one time.  All they talked about is how you can recover your smart phone if you've lost it.  Where is the bitcoin pitch?

[No_2]

The reference to 'first' was my verbatim copying of their kickstarter title. ( I'm just the messenger ).

Seems to be a suite of utilities and they have managed to use this to build a Bitcoin hardware wallet.

When speaking to Ben, who I believe is the lead developer there, he said they are about to set up their website and services to allow you to pay them in Bitcoin.

[crazy_rabbit]

I'm confused.  I watched the whole video and they didn't mention bitcoin even one time.  All they talked about is how you can recover your smart phone if you've lost it.  Where is the bitcoin pitch?

I think what they are doing is repurposing a device they already made for bitcoin. Basically it's a computer with NFC, so they figure "why not sign transactions with it?" It's a good idea to be honest.

[zimmah]

From a cursory glance, I don't like this design at all.  It's too complicated.  It's too big.  It's too expensive.  Is it waterproof?  Why does it require a smartphone to use?  Why does it need USB and bluetooth?  Why does it need 2 gigs of memory and a battery?  What's the advantage?  Is this thing a Bitcoin payment card or a child tracking device?  Jesus, choose one.

i actually like the fact it needs both the card AND the smartphone, there's no way a thief can steal both at the same time, and there's no risk of getting skimmed when you lose it.

in order for bitcoin to gain mass adoption as a currency, and not just as an investment, we should all support efforts like this.

bitcoin is currently much too complicated for the average shopper, NFC cards are much easier, and bitcoin and NFC can work very well together.