[joshstrange]

Aside from the fact that I wouldn't know what I was looking at, I've been tempted to crack open one of the Stripe M2 readers I have and look inside.

Unfortunately, out of 36 readers that I bought, 7 have "died" (2 won't hold a charge, 1 won't scan NFC, and 4 report "tampered"). That attrition rate is pretty bad on the surface but it doesn't tell the whole story of course, how often were they used? How old are they?

The answer to those questions is much more damning. The devices are 1-3 years old (I bought them over time) and have been used a max of 9 days total [0]. Yes, 9 days _total_ of use and 7 of 36 readers failed in some fashion. Oh, and the readers are all kept in hardshell cases with foam inserts (1 slot per reader) whenever they are moved.

Needless to say, I'm not a huge fan of the M2 readers but they are still the best option for me :/

[0] Some background, my company handles festival payments. We travel to events and handle the in-person payments (most happens on web/app) with iPads+M2 Readers. That's why there are so few "days of use" over 3 years.

[mrbuttons454]

I'd be sure to charge them before storing them for the next show. Most batteries don't like being stored for long periods in a low SoC state. And I'm sure the tamper requires a functional battery.

[joshstrange]

All readers are charged for a day minimum after a festival before I pull the power. I then normally power them up at least a week before the next event so I can update them all and check that no more have randomly died on me. I keep a healthy buffer of devices so that I can replace them without paying for express shipping from Stripe which saved me for the last event I did where I had 6 of them die (before that pre-event check I only had the 1 bad NFC reader from the previous year).

I have to assume that one of the hard-shell cases got thrown around a little too much which caused 4 readers to go into tamper mode. 3 of the tamper mode readers were in the same case but the other was in my nicest case and still had the issue ("nicest" = custom made case vs pick-and-pluck-style).

The tampers I can somewhat understand (still just so odd to have 4 die "at once"), maybe they did get banged up, but the failed NFC and not holding a charge issues are less acceptable to me given the time/use.

[VladVladikoff]

Just curious if you have experienced equipment issues with stripe equipment that is not battery powered. I am about to pull the trigger on a POS decision and strip is a contender in my choices, but this is for wired devices not wireless.

[joshstrange]

The only Stripe hardware I’ve used is the M2 reader so I can’t speak to any wired options. I don’t think there are any wired readers that you can use you with an iPad (which I needed).