jaa101 t1_j6g7rkt wrote on January 30, 2023 at 2:34 AM

The amount of data being transmitted is tiny so the communication speed is not an issue. Contactless wins because you just have to position the card reasonably close to the reader. For contactless you have to align the card in a slot and insert which takes longer.

jimmysofat6864 OP t1_j6gbh3f wrote on January 30, 2023 at 3:00 AM

Yea but even with with the chip in the machine it takes about 5 seconds before the transaction completes where on contactless I can hover it over the reader for half a second then it processes in 1-2 seconds then it's done.

rspoon18 t1_j6ge9pw wrote on January 30, 2023 at 3:17 AM

Au contraire, "communication speed" absolutely is an issue. IT is the payload size("amount of data") that is not an issue. Communication speed (data transmission Round Trip Time aka RTT) doesn't change based on payload size - it is a constant based on the laws of physics.

A RTT across the continental US will take minimally 70-80 ms (plus remote processing time, which is the actual time hog since database lookups are S-L-O-W compared to data transmission) whether you send a single 64-byte packet or thousands of 1500-byte packets (to be more precise the larger packets take slightly longer in parts of the network that are not packet switched, but the difference is on the order of a few milliseconds, unperceiveable by humans).

See what /u/saywherefore said above for the most likely explanation based on actual response times.

cache_bag t1_j6h9xfx wrote on January 30, 2023 at 8:48 AM

But it's the same card, confirmed by OP. I'd understand if it's say credit card EMV vs Apple Pay. But if it's same card, it should be undergoing the same process in talking you the bank. The only difference would then be isolated to the actual tech (or how the app coded the communication with the tech). So the argument made by top answer regarding validity of the card shouldn't be a factor.