While your average wallet is more than up to the task of carrying your cards and money around, there’s not a lot else it does. That might sound counterintuitive, but the simple fact is that the world is changing, and you’re bound to find yourself carrying more things in your pockets than just a phone, wallet, and keys. With a smart wallet, you can combine a few of those extra things you’re carrying, while being prepared for a few things you might not expect as well.
Your Current Wallet Is A Bit Behind
Your traditional bifold (or maybe trifold) wallet is a design tested by time. It can hold as many bills and cards as you have without complaint, although it might get a bit too thick to fit comfortably in a pocket. That said, holding bills and cards is about the only thing a traditional wallet can do. It can’t charge your phone, track itself via Bluetooth, or block RFID signals though.
While there are ways to do those things with a normal wallet, they’ll take up more space in your pockets or wallet, which can get annoying, and more importantly, can be forgotten or left behind by accident. Why add something else to the mental checklist when leaving home if you can have all those things in one pocket that’ll tell you if you’ve left it behind somewhere?
Why Upgrade?
A smart wallet is a great idea for an upgrade, as they are made by many different manufacturers with a wide array of possible features. Almost every smart wallet is also an rfid wallet, meaning it is able to block RFID signals. Some credit or ID cards can utilize RFID technology to display their information. This is the sort of technology used that lets you wave your credit card in front of the card reader at the grocery store and still pay. However, on some older credit cards that were made with the first generation of RFID technology, this technology can be read by a scammer with an RFID scanner to get access to your financial information.
Some more expensive smart wallets are also GPS tracking. This can be achieved through one of two means: either the wallet itself has integrated GPS technology, or there is a purchasable tracking card about the same size and dimensions as a credit card that can be carried within. The smart wallets with integrated GPS technology have other features that allow them to be make sound when your phone gets too far away, while some can be located from anywhere in the world.
Everyone has some kind of smartphone nowadays, and that means that everyone has found themself in a situation where their phone is dead, and they have nothing but their wallet, keys, and phone. Thankfully, some smart wallets also double as mobile batteries, meaning the odds of draining your battery completely are now even lower! They may not be the largest, fastest, or most robust mobile battery on the planet, but considering it isn’t an extra thing to store in a pocket and can be the difference between a dead or half-charged phone, it’s well worth it.
While GPS tracking sounds like a nice thing to have, most people who don’t travel frequently probably won’t need it, since there’s only a handful of places for a wallet to disappear to anyway. RFID blocking and a small battery, however, could be considered essential in the modern-day, especially since everyone has something that would benefit from a mobile battery; rfid wallets are a great background benefit of a smart wallet, especially since they don’t require any extra thought or effort.
Upgrading your wallet doesn’t have to happen very often, but it’s something you should consider, especially with all the benefits of a smart wallet.
