Suica reading apps

[mojo]

In anticipation of travelling again, can anyone recommend some good apps to read Suica cards on Android phones?

 

I tried a few out, but most have some kind of issue. Main one being lack of data on station names and bus stops. I imagine there are some apps which are not available in Europe too, i.e. they are limited to the Japanese Play Store so I can't see them.

 

I'm sure you guys already know this, but Suica cards and similar ones only store the last 20 transactions, so you have to read them regularly or data is lost. I read that Google Pay supports Suica a WAON now, but not outside Japan.

 

CardReader: History, CSV export. It's partially in English, the CSV files are in Japanese.

Suikakeibo: Has station names in English, seems fairly comprehensive. CSV export is available in the paid version which is £4.98, I guess maybe 600-700 yen.

ICカードリーダー: Doesn't seem to store history.

SuicaBal Read: Doesn't seem to store history.

Metrodroid: Available on F-Droid, open source, English language. Has maps too. Main issue is that it doesn't merge histories, it stores every scan as a separate batch with overlapping entries. No CSV export either.

FareBot: Same as Metrodroid but with worse support for Japan.

PASMO/Suica History NFC Reader: No history or export.

Suica＆PASMOリーダー: Couldn't get it to work properly on my Pixel 5, never read most of the data.

MIRU Ca: Very basic, no CSV export.

ICカードリーダー ～Suica 残高チェッカー～: No history, Japanese only.

 

Is there one I didn't try yet? CardReader and Suikakeibo seem like the two best ones but neither are perfect.

[Tony Galiani]

Since it is not Google, this may not be helpful to you but for iPhone users, my wife downloaded her Suica card into Apple Pay and it seems to keep track.  She has all her purchases from two years ago.

And here I thought I was with it just by getting a Suica card!

Cheers,

Tony

[Madsing]

I did that too, so it’s not only for Japanese. I have registered my Suica card in the Apple Wallet app at the beginning of 2019. I can still read the list of stations and trips, in English, where I used it.

[mojo]

I double checked on Google Pay just now. It has the option to add a transport card, but the list does not include any Japanese cards. There is a blog entry on their official site about it, but it says "users in Japan".

 

Next time I'm there I'll see if it opens the option up, but for example it doesn't switch to the Japanese version of Google Play even with a Japanese SIM card installed. It's a shame because Google Pay lets you export your complete history.

[chadbag]

Don't have an answer for the OP but for the iPhone users and Suica in Apple Wallet -- the nice thing is you can reload it through Apple Pay (using US credit card).  I've stood in line at Mr Donut (who didn't take a credit card) and once I knew how much and saw I didn't have enough on my Suica card, just added more while in the Mr Donut line using Apple Pay and then used the Suica from the wallet with Apple Pay to buy the family donuts.  Was super easy.  Much easier than earlier with our ICOCA cards and having to feed the machines with cash to reload them.

 

(The wife usually carries most of the cash, and we withdraw less and less cash each time we go as it is easier and most everyone takes a card now or Suica or other compatible regions card)