How Well Does PRESTO Support For Apple Watch And iPhone Work? Let’s Find Out!
After I wrote this how to guide that details how to add your PRESTO transit card to your Apple Watch and iPhone, I got a number of emails asking about how well things worked. So in the interest of science, I left my car at home on Saturday to visit two clients and pick up some items from a bike shop. With that out of the way, let’s get to it.
I started from my suburban Toronto home and walked over to the subway station. There, I used my Apple Watch to get into the station.
Now the PRESTO card readers in the stations are on the right side, which means that using an Apple Watch requires you to go across your body to tap your Apple Watch on the reader if you wear your watch on your left wrist. That’s likely a non issue for most. But coming from a guy that has broken both collarbones, it’s not exactly comfortable. One thing I need to note is that I have Express Transit Mode enabled so that all I have to do is tap my Apple Watch and go. I feel comfortable having Express Transit Mode enabled for the Apple Watch as someone would have to rip my Apple Watch off my wrist to use it to get onto transit. Conversely, because iPhone theft is a thing that can be snatched out of your hand, I do not have it enabled for my iPhone. That’s because I want to authenticate before I pay for transit.
I traveled to the north part of the city to visit one of my clients which took about an hour. About 30 minutes later I hopped onto the subway again. Because it was within two hours, I should be eligible for a free transfer. And when I tapped, that’s exactly what happened. But four stations into my journey to my next client, I had to go back to the first client to fix a new issue. That took another 30 minutes which required me to pay another fare. At that point I needed to refill the PRESTO card on my Apple Watch. The quickest way to do that is to use your iPhone to do it either via the PRESTO app or on the card itself via the Watch app on your iPhone. Which means that if you travel with only your Apple Watch, you need to preload the PRESTO card on your Apple Watch so that you can get to and from your destination. I chose the latter option.
One thing that is handy is that it keeps track of every time you tap the card.
That’s something that you would normally have to go into the PRESTO app to see if you have a physical PRESTO card. Which assumes that you have the PRESTO card added to the app. If you just have the card, or it’s not in the app, you’re out of luck. One thing that I noted is that the subway is called the “Metro”. Interesting.
In short, using the PRESTO card on my Apple Watch was a total non-event. Everything worked perfectly and it was as if I was using a physical PRESTO card. If you were on the fence in terms of going to using your PRESTO card on your iPhone or Apple Watch, I would say go right ahead. From what I can tell, everything seems to work fine.
This entry was posted on July 28, 2024 at 8:53 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Presto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
How Well Does PRESTO Support For Apple Watch And iPhone Work? Let’s Find Out!
After I wrote this how to guide that details how to add your PRESTO transit card to your Apple Watch and iPhone, I got a number of emails asking about how well things worked. So in the interest of science, I left my car at home on Saturday to visit two clients and pick up some items from a bike shop. With that out of the way, let’s get to it.
I started from my suburban Toronto home and walked over to the subway station. There, I used my Apple Watch to get into the station.
Now the PRESTO card readers in the stations are on the right side, which means that using an Apple Watch requires you to go across your body to tap your Apple Watch on the reader if you wear your watch on your left wrist. That’s likely a non issue for most. But coming from a guy that has broken both collarbones, it’s not exactly comfortable. One thing I need to note is that I have Express Transit Mode enabled so that all I have to do is tap my Apple Watch and go. I feel comfortable having Express Transit Mode enabled for the Apple Watch as someone would have to rip my Apple Watch off my wrist to use it to get onto transit. Conversely, because iPhone theft is a thing that can be snatched out of your hand, I do not have it enabled for my iPhone. That’s because I want to authenticate before I pay for transit.
I traveled to the north part of the city to visit one of my clients which took about an hour. About 30 minutes later I hopped onto the subway again. Because it was within two hours, I should be eligible for a free transfer. And when I tapped, that’s exactly what happened. But four stations into my journey to my next client, I had to go back to the first client to fix a new issue. That took another 30 minutes which required me to pay another fare. At that point I needed to refill the PRESTO card on my Apple Watch. The quickest way to do that is to use your iPhone to do it either via the PRESTO app or on the card itself via the Watch app on your iPhone. Which means that if you travel with only your Apple Watch, you need to preload the PRESTO card on your Apple Watch so that you can get to and from your destination. I chose the latter option.
One thing that is handy is that it keeps track of every time you tap the card.
That’s something that you would normally have to go into the PRESTO app to see if you have a physical PRESTO card. Which assumes that you have the PRESTO card added to the app. If you just have the card, or it’s not in the app, you’re out of luck. One thing that I noted is that the subway is called the “Metro”. Interesting.
In short, using the PRESTO card on my Apple Watch was a total non-event. Everything worked perfectly and it was as if I was using a physical PRESTO card. If you were on the fence in terms of going to using your PRESTO card on your iPhone or Apple Watch, I would say go right ahead. From what I can tell, everything seems to work fine.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
This entry was posted on July 28, 2024 at 8:53 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Presto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.