The end is nigh for Coin cards, secure smart payment devices that allow you to store information from up to eight credit, debit or gift cards onto one, digitally secured, wallet-sized card.
Coin had already begun shutting down all their business operations since Fitbit officially acquired the start up back in June of 2016. Now, just seven months after the sale, the company took to the company blog to officially announced that product service and support would be shutting down as of February 28th:
"Effective from February 28, 2017, the Coin product services will officially be shut down. As a result, support through the Coin website or through social media channels will no longer be available."If you have a working Coin device, it will continue to work for the duration of the device's battery life, which is two years from activation date. Please note that functionality will be reduced as a result of the February services shutdown.For example, the Coin mobile app will no longer work once product services are shut down. Among other things, this means that you will not be able to add or change the cards that are stored on your Coin device."
If you're still using your Coin card, you will definitely want to make your final arrangements and shuffle around the cards you plan to be using before that drop dead date, as you will still be free to continue using your Coin cards at your favorite supported merchants until its internal battery finally bites the dust. However, if anything goes haywire after February 28th, you're officially out of luck.
Also worth noting is that, as of today's date (January 31), Coins will no longer be covered by or eligible for warranty exchanges.
Fitbit bought Coin for their compact use of NFC technology for secure in-store payments. While neither the Fitbit Flex 2 or Charge 2 featured NFC capabilities to allow you to pay for things with your fitness tracker, we should hopefully start to see the tech included in the next round of product updates — or perhaps in a brand new Fitbit-branded smartwatch?
