JR East announced the Suica Smart-Lock service for a December launch. The service is a co-venture that incorporates JREM who provide the cloud based ID-Port technology and ART, an access system provider using FeliCa and MIFARE NFC technologies and lock provider/partner ALLIGATE. A Suica card (physical and mobile) can be registered online as a key and might utilize the ‘Super Suica’ FeliCa Secure ID cloud centric feature found in next generation FeliCa with JR East providing the backend authentication service. The Suica Smart-Lock site lists apartment buildings, hotels, company building access, parking lot and elevator use as end user scenarios.
The streamlined cloud aspect is being marketed as a cost saver: hosts don’t need to setup a key server or issue cards. The user simply registers their Suica ID number online but the ID number is not used for access, the unlocking part is done with secure mutual authentication. Management sets the key privileges or guest access. Other transit IC cards can be registered as a key but the press announcement fine print suggests some limitations with non-Suica cards (i.e. only Suica and PASMO are on mobile devices).
Mobile Suica support is shown extensively in the web images and the watch images strongly suggest Apple Watch which is the only wearable device, so far, that fully supports all Mobile Suica features. Another interesting aspect is that Apple’s iOS 15 Japanese language preview page only shows Wallet digital key support as a new feature. I think it’s safe to assume that Apple Pay Suica Express Transit support will be there with Suica Smart-Lock in December. The question is will there be a separate iOS 15 Wallet digital key version for people who only need the Suica Smart-Lock digital key function? Suica and transit IC cards are already used by some access solutions but key management and cost have kept them from wide deployment.
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