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Metrodroid lets you check how much money left in your metro card |
Have you ever wondered what was the use of you NFC chip? Here's one : check your public transportation card's balance.
At the moment, the supported cards are as follow :
- Bilhete Único - São Paulo, Brazil (requires encryption keys, not compatible with all devices, must be selected as fallback reader)
- Clipper - San Francisco, CA, USA
- EZ-Link - Singapore (Not compatible with all devices)
- Go card (Translink) - Brisbane and South East Queensland, Australia (requires encryption keys, not compatible with all devices, not all stations known)
- Manly Fast Ferry - Sydney, NSW, Australia (requires encryption keys, not compatible with all devices)
- Matkakortti, HSL - Finland
- Myki - Melbourne (and surrounds), VIC, Australia (Only the card number can be read)
- MyWay - Australian Capital Territory, Australia (preview, requires encryption keys, not compatible with all devices, must be selected as fallback reader)
- NETS FlashPay - Singapore
- Octopus - Hong Kong
- Opal - Sydney (and surrounds), NSW, Australia
- ORCA - Seattle, WA, USA
- OV-chipkaart - Netherlands (Requires encryption keys, not compatible with all devices)
- Shenzhen Tong - Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China
- Suica, ICOCA, PASMO, Edy - Japan
- Transit Access Pass - Los Angeles, CA, USA (Requires encryption keys, not compatible with all devices)
As I live between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, I will focus on these two. Let's have a look on how to check my Octopus card (Hong Kong) balance :
First, download the app called Metroid (from Play store or F-droid, it is open-source and the code is on Github) :
Second, after you launched the app, you will be prompted to activate NFC,
Third, just put your card at the back of your phone and let's start reading!
Here we go I still have 40 HKD on my Octopus 🐙!
When I try the same thing with my 深圳通 (Shenzhen Tong), I get an error :
It may be because the shenzhen's card support is still in beta or because my phone is not a NXP NFC chipset (About screen says: Mifare Classic: Supported).
Anyway, if your phone and city transportation card are fully supported it is a useful app to have. It happened to me a few times that I give away these cards to my friends before they go visit a city but I always have to warn them that "I don't know how much money is in it!".