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Bluetooth lift gates - battery life?

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Monterosa apparently trialling these, https://www.visitmonterosa.com/en/news-en/monterosa-ski-novita-stagione-2021-2022/

My only concern, how likely is this to affect battery life. My relatively new iPhone SE 2020 will get 2 days or so without me using it at all but struggles to get a day of reasonably heavy use ...
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
It doesn’t say they are removing conventional pass access, and not every user will have a smart phone, so I would expect standard passes to remain.

I would have thought that charging your smart phone every day is normal, and many charge multiple times and carry a stand-alone charger for top ups.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I hope it can stay inside a pocket rather than having to faff about unzipping and retrieving it for every gate.
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 You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
@PowderAdict, I don’t want to have to add spare battery to all the other stuff I carry!

But yeah I guess usual cards will remain.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Usual assumption that everybody will be carrying a smart phone. What about families, where the kids might want to go off on their own, or with a class?
Would a family ticket mean the family has to remain as one group for the entire holiday?
It would be a real pain if they all had to go through the same gate as 1 group, without anybody squeezing in. Then the problem of getting in line to be on the same chair rolling eyes ?
Or the more mature skier, who has never bothered with one.

As you say, battery life could well be an issue at the end of the day, especially on older models.

No mention of how they would deal with discount for large groups.
It could cause a real headache for the likes of @Admin, or any In resort reps trying to book for their groups.

I think it could be a case of technology for the sake of it, using Covid as an excuse in order to reduce staff in ticket offices.
May actually put some people off, who book elsewhere.
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 You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
@brianatab, I don't imagine anyone is expecting that a group would be relying one one phone!
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Minor bluetooth usage shouldn't really affect battery life.

I'd imagine that a family ticket would be treated the same as now - if on one physical ticket, on one phone. Be the same issue of getting all through the same gate.
If multiple tickets, multiple phones. Almost certainly an non-issue.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
@MorningGory, do family tickets go on one physical lift pass right now?
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 You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
@under a new name, Not a clue snowHead

I wouldn't have thought so though.
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 Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Serre Chevalier have been trialling them the last couple of years and this season will see close to 20 lifts fitted with the gates.

Only available to those with season passes so hopefully will help avoid the high season lift queues.

https://www.skipass-serrechevalier.com/en/coupe-file-enjoy
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
I guess the resort needs to update their ticketing system, so they needed to decide on which technology to adopt. Assuming the old dated ticket and barcoded tickets can be considered obsolete. That leaves the current standards of RFID or NFC tickets, both easily managed and allow tracking of lift usage, but required dedicated equipment.

The move to Bluetooth based can be seen as the future option (even though its fairly terrible technology), but it must in some way identify the users Smartphone uniquely, otherwise someone will hack the system and be able to ski for free.

The actual buying of tickets, discounts, groups etc will be exactly the same, its just the point of use that is changing.

Also don't forget that 'youth' are the future, and many have lived their entire lives in a symbiotic relationship with their Smartphone, so why would they use anything else.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Interesting -nothing new about buying the liftpasses online and loading a device - you use to be able to do this on certain swatch watches for example that had skidata (RFID) tech built in. The skidata system in recent years though I never used it allowed you to preload old ski passes online if you had the long serial available to input into the ticketing system (the pass didn't have to be from the resort you were visiting).

But I do wonder if the move to bluetooth is that the handshake for NFC required the devices to be 4cm or less ? So Bluetooth, like RFID allowed a larger distance especially through clothes to carry out the handshake. Though it makes me wonder if lift barrier readers are to the left - I am in a busy queue and the phone is in my right pocket and there is another gate to me left how does it know which gate to open?

Is it skidata who are providing the new bluetooth tech or a competitor?

Do like my liftpasses though - its a nice souvenir of each resort / trip I have been on.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
@barracuda, Bluetooth has a fairly long range, I did some experiments with the first Ericsson modules, how does the system know that the person carrying the device is next to the turnstile? Or has the turnstile been removed?
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
We had a similar system to this at work; our security passes were turned into an app.

I say "had" because it was rubbish... very unreliable; if your phone switched to power saving mode or the app was in background mode, the BT connection either wouldn't form, or took so long to happen that it was pointless.

Hopefully the tech has improved. When it worked it required similar proximity to a contactless ski pass - i.e. a few cm at most.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
@MorningGory, I would be pretty (~100%) confident in saying that they don't.

@barracuda, I would be reasonably sure that SkiData have a near monopoly on this market (I don't recall seeing any other brand). And yes, long number, ... my physical Chamonix pass was issued in 2016 and hasn't been near the ticket office since (probably needs to be replaced due w&t!). I think it's only reasonably recently that you could use cards from "strange" resorts, which is why at one point we had around 40 different cards sitting in our car (including duplicates).

Questions on range seem very valid.

@snowdave, haha! Hmmm. It feels to me like a solution looking for a problem. It's not even about recycling, c.f. my Cham pass above.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
snowdave wrote:


I say "had" because it was rubbish... very unreliable; if your phone switched to power saving mode or the app was in background mode....

Hopefully the tech has improved.


It hasn't as the idiots at NHS track and trace found out the hard way. - Apple does this intentionally to prevent tracking.

This is a terrible idea. Battery can die, phone can get wet and die, or some one can simply lose it. Skipass is always there in the sleeve pocket. Why fix something that ain't broke.
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