My Magic Pass App

The app is absolutely terrible at updating the status of machines. Every time I do laundry and am ready to use the driers, I can start one drier just fine but the app won’t let me start the second. It just has a message “wait 2 minutes”. Why?! And the 2 minutes is more like 5 minutes. Trying to use a washing machine after it has just been used is just as frustrating. The app will say it’s in use for several minutes after the cycle is done. Then it often changes the message to “remove clothes” even though the machine is empty. This awful app makes doing laundry take far longer than necessary due to the pointless waiting between uses.

My building just added new machines that have this app integration. So far it works fine, I haven’t had any issues with paying and using the machines and is a nice alternative to the manual money cards we had before. My biggest issue is with the app showing if the machines are in use or not. Because the manual cards are still an option, as far as I can tell, if you pay with the manual money card, the app will not show that the machine is in use on the app. It only shows that it is in use if someone pays via the app. That would be fine if the app is the only option of paying but it is not, and a lot of the older residents will only ever use the money cards. So I run into situations where it says the machines are available but they are not. It’s very annoying walking down to the laundry room and the machines are not free. This system was suppose to fix that problem but it really hasn’t. It seems like a major over site for the machine to not show as in use regardless of how people pay. PLEASE FIX THIS! It would make the experience much better.

They replaced the laundry machines in my building this week with these new ones. Now, instead of paying $1.75 per load, I'm paying $3. Let that sink in. That's almost a 100% increase in price. There's also the issue of having to “add funds.” This economic scheme is as old as time to slowly but gradually lose money. Instead of charging your card per load, you need to add at least $20 to your “funds.” That amount represents almost ten times the amount you need for having one load done. I understand that card processing fees can hurt a business, but as a business owner, I know several companies process card payments for a 2.5% commission. Other ones don't have any fees as long as you have other products with them. I also don't like that I have to select which machine I'm going to use. I should just tap with my phone a NFC reader or something so my phone and the machine can exchange information and finalize the process. It feels to me that Bluetooth is overcomplicating things. Think about tap to pay. That should be the way. In conclusion, the current system may be more “advanced” than before but it comes at a hefty price that we consumers end up paying.