Anyone else having issues with series 4 on London underground?

[Rob2775]

Many will of course take the view that you can just swap to another method, but you can't just do this on the occasion that it acts up as you lose daily/weekly capping if you use another card/device.

Amen to that. I regularly lose my temper completely with the damn thing and decide I won't bother anymore, but every time the cold reality that giving up on ApplePay via AW4 midway through a week will incur me a cost through no fault of my own, by restarting weekly capping.

This has stopped me abandoning it. I imagine if I had repetitive failures of the kind I had this week, on a Friday or Saturday, I'd have given up on AW altogether by now - annoyingly Friday after work and Saturday are low stress occasions when it's easy to be a little more patient.

 

[Wormald]

Used my series 4 hundreds of times to go through the barriers on the tube.

Some observations:

- ~25% of the time, the barrier rejects with the error “only one card at a time”,

- When this happens, I hold my wrist still for 3 more seconds and 95% of the time the barrier rescans and accepts.

- Very rarely, my watch “gives up” and gives a little trill tap “payment not completed”.

- This is the rare eventuality that requires re double-tapping the side button, and sensing the poisonous gaze of the inevitably outraged Very Busy Person land on my back

- I’m relishing the opportunity to practice being a bit of an obstacle to others (easier when it’s not your fault!) because I tend naturally towards being overly apologetic, so it’s fun to play at ‘idgaf’.

Perhaps every failed attempt is going into a database that will help improve the detection algo? Do TFL know it’s an Apple Watch being used I wonder?

 

[inkhorn]

Any of you enabled an 'Express Travel' card and still experience this problem ?

 

[twynne]

Any of you enabled an 'Express Travel' card and still experience this problem ?

If you mean 'Express Transit', it's not yet enabled on the London transport network, so it will (unfortunately) make no difference to this experience until it is.
[doublepost=1562064729][/doublepost]

Any of you enabled an 'Express Travel' card and still experience this problem ?

Also see https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/30/18645394/apple-pay-express-transit-london-tfl-tube-support-uk

 

[inkhorn]

If you mean 'Express Transit', it's not yet enabled on the London transport network, so it will (unfortunately) make no difference to this experience until it is.
[doublepost=1562064729][/doublepost]
Also see https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/30/18645394/apple-pay-express-transit-london-tfl-tube-support-uk

Well, 'transit' in the USA, 'travel' in the UK

I was curious to know whether TFL might have partially enabled the technology and it was causing issues for the AW4 ?

 

[twynne]

Well, 'transit' in the USA, 'travel' in the UK
View attachment 846134

I was curious to know whether TFL might have partially enabled the technology and it was causing issues for the AW4 ?

Apple refer to the capability as Express Transit, which was why I asked: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT209495 ... though I note in Settings it refers to the card as Express Travel Card (even in the UK). Confusing!

In any case, the issues noted above started way before there was any such thing, so I highly doubt it's related.

 

[smileman]

I've been having this issue with my Series 4 for as long as I can remember.

Did we ever get to the bottom of whether replacing the watch makes a difference or not?

 

[Dino F]

Doesn’t help that it’s on my left wrist so a bit of a reach across to the sensor

....yea, that is a right PITA for me too!
[doublepost=1562597510][/doublepost]...why can't the barriers be on the left!!!!!!

 

[KeanosMagicHat]

I’m not sure whether these barriers work like contactless readers in the supermarket but, if they do, maybe there’s a caching issue with some of them?

Reason I say this is I attempted to pay at a counter in a supermarket using my S4 and it failed.

I was about to get my card out and the Assistant said, “Let’s try that again. We were told in training that we need to clear the cache regularly or it could fail. Give me a second whilst I try that”.

She then pressed a few buttons on the till and said, “Give it another go now”.

It worked with no issue afterward.

If the underground gates use the same process, perhaps the employee / system responsible hadn’t cleared the cache frequently enough?

PS - I noticed in the supermarket self checkout section that some tills have solid green lights in the indicator stem and others have flashing green lights. Guessing that those flashing might be a signal to employees to clear the cache, I’ve been avoiding those.

Since that time, I’ve not had a single failure and I must’ve used Apple Pay 30 times at least since making the observation.

 

[smileman]

I took my AW4 to the Apple Store and after a little argument with them claiming that this is a TfL problem they agreed to replace the watch. Let's see if the new one works better when I receive it.

Did a new watch help?

Or are some people having a good experience with AW4 and not having this problem?

If either of these is the case then it would seem that a replacement might help.

 

[Rob2775]

Did a new watch help?

Or are some people having a good experience with AW4 and not having this problem?

If either of these is the case then it would seem that a replacement might help.

I had a new Series 4 since only November and it's had the problems on TfL from day one. As a side by side test, I also used a Fitbit (Fitbit Pay) for a full week, and a Garmin (Garmin Pay) for a full week on TfL, and both were flawless, with the FitBit Pay noticeably quicker (instantaneous) compared to AW4 though this is because these are passive not active NFC.

A month ago I finally gave up on AW4 for TfL, was becoming too tiresome with a 70-80% failure rate, having to slow people up in busy stations, and my support request to TfL got no response (I am already well used to Apple Support being ignorant). Now I just use a contactless card attached to the back of my phone which at least has the satisfaction of working.

In my view Apple have had enough time to either isolate and resolve the issue with TfL or issue proper guidance about the suitability of these devices for such an important use case, as I know plenty of people are attracted to buying the watch for this alone. Does anyone have a good experience? I doubt people should buy Apple Watches with TfL travel in mind.

 

[gnasher729]

Since upgrading from series3 to series 4, I find nearly every first attempt to use the watch for contactless on London underground fails. Often it will only work after cancelling Apple pay And invoking it again.

Very frustrating when series 3 worked 100% of the time, and I'm afraid London travelers are not very patient with someone repeatedly trying and blocking an entry/exit!

Please note that London Underground seems to have the habit that once one entry point doesn't like you, it doesn't like you, and _you_ won't be able to open it. Retrying is very rarely successful. So get out of the way, and move to another entry point.

(Does "get out of the way" sound impatient and rude? Well, that's exactly what everyone behind you in the queue thinks, and they might add some words
[doublepost=1566896134][/doublepost]

Amen to that. I regularly lose my temper completely with the damn thing and decide I won't bother anymore, but every time the cold reality that giving up on ApplePay via AW4 midway through a week will incur me a cost through no fault of my own, by restarting weekly capping.

This has stopped me abandoning it. I imagine if I had repetitive failures of the kind I had this week, on a Friday or Saturday, I'd have given up on AW altogether by now - annoyingly Friday after work and Saturday are low stress occasions when it's easy to be a little more patient.

Just register your debit card with TfL. You can't switch during a journey, but you can switch any day, without any extra cost.

 

[smileman]

Please note that London Underground seems to have the habit that once one entry point doesn't like you, it doesn't like you, and _you_ won't be able to open it. Retrying is very rarely successful.

That’s not my experience. Retrying works, usually takes 3 to 4 additional tries, and allowing the gate a second or two after the first unsuccessful attempt.

But yes, this is super annoying for the people behind you during rush hour.

 

[danmart]

I always use ApplePay on the underground, though I don’t use the tube every day.

My experience of the tube barriers is that they like you to be stood well back from the entrance, or they suspect two people are going to try to get through on one activation. You see this with Oyster cards, too, but given that ApplePay is slower to transact there is more chance you will keep moving forwards and trigger the ‘too close’ behaviour.

My experience is that ApplePay works maybe 95%+ of the time, but it is definitely slower and more stressful than using an NFC card. I mostly use my iPhone because it can be used one-handed but the watch can’t!

 

[smileman]

Any guesses on whether the Series 5 will work better than the 4 for the tube?

Since the earlier models worked better than the 4 I figure there is at least a chance they fixed or went back to what was working...

 

[danmart]

I was in London for two days last week and used ApplePay on my Watch more than half a dozen times. Worked perfectly.

 

[smileman]

I was in London for two days last week and used ApplePay on my Watch more than half a dozen times. Worked perfectly.

Yes, it seems like some people are not having problems so I’m wondering if it’s just certain units. But no one in this thread has said whether their problems went away after getting a new Series 4. Has anyone had this experience?

 

[Rob2775]

But no one in this thread has said whether their problems went away after getting a new Series 4. Has anyone had this experience?

My problems were with a Series 4. It was better with the first version!

 

[smileman]

What about Series 5? Any improvement?

 

[bottl3n3ck]

Since upgrading from series3 to series 4, I find nearly every first attempt to use the watch for contactless on London underground fails. Often it will only work after cancelling Apple pay And invoking it again.

Very frustrating when series 3 worked 100% of the time, and I'm afraid London travelers are not very patient with someone repeatedly trying and blocking an entry/exit!

I upgraded from S2 to S4 last year. My S2 always worked with TFL. Since I started using S4, I have never been able to authorise contactless payments (I've tried it at many different stations, at many different times and on buses as well).

 

[Strangedream]

So that's why you Londoners spend nearly 4 grands a year on public transit? lmao

 

[Sitdowndisco]

Just wanted to add that I’m experiencing exactly the same issues with Apple Watch series 4, but on Sydney transport. It only seems to happen when I’m tapping off for some
reason. Success rate is about 20% at this stage. Very Busy People get upset quickly.

 

[smileman]

What about Series 5? Any improvement?

 

[Sitdowndisco]

Just wanted to add that I’m experiencing exactly the same issues with Apple Watch series 4, but on Sydney transport. It only seems to happen when I’m tapping off for some
reason. Success rate is about 20% at this stage. Very Busy People get upset quickly.

I received a phone call from the Transport people in Sydney yesterday who tried to explain the technical situation behind why these apple watch failures happen. Apparently the apple watch is built with the american market in mind where people are sometimes required to sign a paper receipt even though they've used a contactless payment.

To account for this, the watch sends out two signals in extremely quick succession to determine if a signature is required or not so that it can then provide the correct response on the screen. This sometimes results in the transport readers interpreting this as 2 cards being tapped at once. That explains the "use one card" message which comes up.

The guy wasn't sure, but he said there was a setting somewhere on the watch that should stop the watch sending out these multiple pings, but I'm not sure what he was talking about. He seemed to think that apple support could help, but I don't think so. I went through the settings on my watch and the only thing I had enabled which I've now switched off is the express travel pass setting. Doubt if this will have any impact, but I'll report back when I next try the watch which may be a while from now because I'm so burnt out from the huffing and puffing of impatient people behind me at the barriers.

 

[osx86x]

Can confirm happens for me underground and DLR regularly, usually 80% success rate. I can’t pin the cause but I’ve personally had better success by not calling Apple Pay up until I reach the gate. Calling it up to early for me is often the cause of being rejected. If that happens, that gate usually won’t accept a second attempt until a good 10-15 secs, however cancelling and calling up Apple Pay on the adjacent gate usually works. The same gate that works can also reject you on a different day. So it is inconsistent.

Also I observed if the person in front has tapped with a non oyster method (e.g. credit card, phone payment) my success chance drops which seems to indicate to me the TfL system is just a bad implementation in performance and less caused by my watch.

I‘ve not validated the above, so please don’t jump to any conclusions.

Given the convenience over fumbling with cards and phones I still prefer this method as I can get by, as I really don’t care what others think. If you get rejected always stand aside, a second attempt will not work and you hold everyone up