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Comment by zeeZ | Hacker News Reader

If your phone runs Android and you want to go east (north) of Tokyo, none of this will work.

You raise an interesting point here. To use digital Suica/PASMO/whatever in Japan, your mobile phone needs to have NFC hardware called (Sony) "FeliCa (Osaifu-Keitai)". Few Android phones sold outside of Japan have this hardware. However, Apple is a bit special -- I think all modern iPhones sold globally support it. (Please correct me if wrong.)

Google also tells me:

    > Samsung confirmed it's working with JR East to bring Suica and FeliCa support to Galaxy phones sold outside Japan starting in 2027.

JNR passenger services divisions were broken up into: JR Hokkaido, East, Tokai/Central, West, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Of those:

  - JR East took the whole east half of Honshu from southernmost end of Tokyo area all the way to Aomori.
  - JR Tokai aka Central got just Nagoya area + later the entirety of the Tokaido Shinkansen, Tokyo to Osaka.  
  - JR West got the whole Osaka area and to the west of Honshu. 
  - JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku, JR Kyushu got one giant island to themselves each.

This means Tohoku Shinkansen rails and services going from Tokyo to north is on JRE rather than under Tokai/Central. And the Smart EX system mentioned in GP is a service offered by Tokai/Central, so they don't do JRE trains. uhhh same JR different company. Except when the system works. Then they are happy to issue any tickets they can. Bureaucracy!

As far as I'm aware, at least some of the Pixels sold outside Japan have actually had the same hardware for several generations, it's just disabled in software due to licensing

I found that out before I went, so I took an iPhone specifically for the job. The ease is gives you makes it worth carrying. As for northeast of Tokyo, very few visitors do that, sadly.

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