Dissection of a Medallion doodad thingy

[Lucky TGO]

I love it you took it apart so good. How did you do it? When I took my medallion apart with a hammer it didn’t look as good.😄

The Captain of The Rowboat,

Tony

[Grego]

On 4/18/2019 at 3:07 PM, Times Prince said:

One has to wonder whether they will be able to track how much time is used trying to find your photos in the displays before deciding not to buy.  If so, we might see some freeing up of space onboard.

 

One of the innovations on the Sky Princess was the use of facial recognition in the photo area.  Instead of the cabinets with all the photos taken sorted by event, the new process is uses many laptop computer screens that uses your facial capture and finds all the photos that have you in it. Your photos appear and you chose which ones you want and then chose from among the new printing options or the images stored on a thumb drive for purchase.

This new process is amazing.  It saves searching through thousands of photos and gives you many creative ways of printing your images.  The upside for Princess is that it prevents prints from just walking away without payment, saves waste from photos not purchased even though they were all recycled but at a cost.

I hope they will implement this on the fleet if this new system works the way it did when we were on board.

 

[Grego]

12 hours ago, brianlojeck said:

Because my thoughts here are based on the OP, I'm going to make this a reply here to keep the conversation together. First, a bit about me: I'm an electronics designer (FPGA Programmer) in the Aerospace industry, and I teach engineering courses at the university level. I also love new toys.

 

In the OP's photographs, you can see some of the parts on the circuit board. one of them, the one with it's part number in 3 rows, is in Nordic Semiconductor's nRF52832 line. That part is, doubtless, the heart of the medallion. It contains a microprocessor (a very tiny computer), bluetooth, RFID, and WiFi hardware in the same chip.

 

I have tried to get the medallion to talk to other bluetooth, RFID, and WiFi hardware, with no success. The uProc is likely looking for very specific patterns before it starts to communicate.

 

I am fairly certain they ship the medallions to the passenger so close to the sail-date because they want to make sure the battery doesn't run out while at sea. I'd be interested to see what the battery life is. I'm sure their 28 day round-trip to Tahiti is viable, but what about their 110 day round-the-world cruise?

 

The heart of the system is 4 elements:

1: they've dramatically increased ship-to-world network speed. I'm sure this is for data-sharing and data-collection purposes, like tracking where everybody is on-board at all times of the day, and using that data to analyze ship design.

2: MUCH better wifi throughout the ship. Basically, everywhere has a solid connection.

3: the medallion you carry

4: these sensors. In hallways they are set about every 20 yards, there is one in every room of every cabin (4 in my suite alone). I never looked for them in bars and dining joints, but I'm sure they are there... as well as in the pool areas.

 

In my testing, the sensors detect you when you get within about a yard of them. They cannot interpolate your position between sensors: if you watch your location as you walk down a hallway you'll see yourself "teleport" 20 yards at a time, not walk smoothly down the hallway.

 

My room door opened smoothly for me: it was always open by the time I got within two strides of my door.

 

Paying for things must be a pain in the butt: no crew member seemed to want to do it. On the Royal, the crew would just confirm your room number and name instead of having you "beep" the medallion.

 

I figure, one of two things are happening. Either:

1: the sensor broadcasts an ID number via bluetooth; the medallion receives the ID number, then re-broadcasts it using the ships vastly better WiFi to a central computer that uses the information to figure out where you are

OR

2: the medallion broadcasts an ID number via bluetooth; the sensor receives it and communicates with the central computer either via WiFi or hard-wired link

 

Chances are, they are using option 2, so that the most work is not done by the tiny disposable thing, but the Nordic chip has a lot of horsepower for such a simple job... so they may be saving that horsepower for something more complex or nefarious in the future.

 

Either way, the medallion's only real purpose is to help a computer on the ship find you. Everything else is done by phone apps, ship's systems, etc.

 

When it's all said and done, I liked that I could pre-fill out my boarding paperwork, and it was kind of neat having my door open*, but I miss the cruise cards. there's no serious benefit to the medallion to the user**, and they don't fit in my wallet onshore.

 

* This is a security weakness. If I stole your card, it would take A Long Time to test the card in every door, and I'd look suspicious. On the other hand, if I steal your medallion I only need to walk quickly through the ship, and listen for a door to unlock

 

** there are, though, serious data-mining benefits to Princess. I expect to see Vegas-like benefits systems, where people who spend more time out and about in bars and casinos get more and better offers from the cruise line.

As a implementer of RFID systems, your explanation is spot on.  One of the benefits of this system is it's capability in event of an event at sea when it's necessary to locate every passenger and determine exactly where they are in case there is an evacuation.  There is a room on the bridge that contains a complete electronic map of the ship and it's survival crafts.  If there was a muster and evacuation, the officers can determine by number and individual where everyone is.

I know there are going to be more features to be released in the near future, but for now other than the individual tracking for security reasons, there will be opportunities to make the cruising product better by tracking what part of the product is being used and when and how often.

 

[lx200gps]

14 hours ago, brianlojeck said:

 

 

When it's all said and done, I liked that I could pre-fill out my boarding paperwork, and it was kind of neat having my door open*, but I miss the cruise cards. there's no serious benefit to the medallion to the user**, and they don't fit in my wallet onshore.

 

* This is a security weakness. If I stole your card, it would take A Long Time to test the card in every door, and I'd look suspicious. On the other hand, if I steal your medallion I only need to walk quickly through the ship, and listen for a door to unlock

 

** there are, though, serious data-mining benefits to Princess. I expect to see Vegas-like benefits systems, where people who spend more time out and about in bars and casinos get more and better offers from the cruise line.

We've had two Medallion cruises, and the security issue is a bit more worrying than what you describe.  If you steal someone's Medallion, (or if you find one lying on the deck somewhere), you don't have to "...walk quickly through the ship and listen for a door to unlock"  All you have to do is walk up to one of the very many helpful electronic screens and touch the person's Medallion to the sensor. That immediately logs on to THEIR info and you are presented with their avatar and name. You then touch another of the on-screen icons ( IIRC it was called "Stateroom") and it then helpfully shows you another screen with their cabin number and a very nice map display showing the best route for you to take to go and open their cabin door.

[Vexorg]

Would it be possible to get better pictures of the smaller ICs?  Haven't been able to find much on those based on what I can see, although it looks like there's a clock crystal (presumably to provide timing to the 52832)  and most likely some sort of amplifier.  I'm guessing some of the EEs hanging around here can probably do a better job of figuring that out than I can.

 

In bulk quantities I'm guessing the 52832 chips probably cost around $2 each,  and there's probably another $1-2 worth of other components there and the shells can be made for pennies, so the cost to Princess for one of these is probably around $4-5.  Expensive compared to cruise cards, but probably worth the benefits they get from them.  

Edited December 16, 2019 by Vexorg

[brianlojeck]

16 hours ago, polmcs said:

They have those circular sensors about every 10-15 feet or so in the Sanctuary. I had no problem ordering a drink via the app and having it delivered to me at my lounger! 😉 

 

This was my other issue: whenever I was somewhere NOT surrounded by wait-staff, the app told me drink ordering wasn't available. But, whenever I was somewhere where drink ordering was available, I could also just turn my head and tell someone I'd like a drink, and they would take the order.

[brianlojeck]

1 hour ago, Vexorg said:

Would it be possible to get better pictures of the smaller ICs?  Haven't been able to find much on those based on what I can see, although it looks like there's a clock crystal (presumably to provide timing to the 52832)  and most likely some sort of amplifier.  I'm guessing some of the EEs hanging around here can probably do a better job of figuring that out than I can.

I figured the other ICs were either amplifiers/drivers for the antenna or power supplies for the Nordic IC... maybe a big capacitor for power stability purposes.

I assume the Nordic has it's own clock built in, because it seems to have a bunch of other stuff built in already, but the datasheet is freely available if anyone wants to do some light reading. 🙂

 

Like you, I wasn't able to find the other IC's part numbers with some quick googling

[brianlojeck]

4 hours ago, lx200gps said:

  All you have to do is walk up to one of the very many helpful electronic screens and touch the person's Medallion to the senso

 

I never used those stairway screens in any serious way (I miss the map-plaques), so this never occurred to me...

 

That's terrifying!

[brisalta]

19 hours ago, brianlojeck said:

** there are, though, serious data-mining benefits to Princess. I expect to see Vegas-like benefits systems, where people who spend more time out and about in bars and casinos get more and better offers from the cruise line.

 

Except that information is already available to Princess because they record your card information for every bar drink and casino game you play.

Edited December 16, 2019 by brisalta

[brianlojeck]

55 minutes ago, brisalta said:

 

Except that information is already available to Princess because they record your card information for every bar drink and casino game you play.

 

On the one hand, I agree. In fact, I wondered exactly the same thing.

 

However, one must ask, if they already were able to track our movements via room charges, why would they spend millions in NRE and hardware upgrades in order to track our movements?

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

A long time ago I posted there was a magnet in them. To be so careful about a pace maker and your charge cards including a room card if you went to get one. It can clear them. As soon as you put them near one another it is obvious. There are two antennas in them. On that looks like the letter J on the pc board and the other is the coil of wire, Considering they are manufactured over seas my guess on the cost would be about $0.35 to $1.00. Shipping them cost them more than that. Plus the box and the other items that come with them. I have had items manufactured for me in China. Cost me $0.75 each for 1000 of them. I was quoted $6.50 from a manufacturer in the US. A module I had manufactured in China cast was $11.50 in the US would have been $40.00

[denmarks]

I saw another post where someone else took one apart. There was a link to similar items sold by Amazon. I tried to do an Amazon search but could not get the right terms. I seem to remember they cost $5 - $10 but I am sure if produced in bulk the cost is not over a couple dollars. Programming and shipping them probably cost more than the device. 

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

13 minutes ago, denmarks said:

I saw another post where someone else took one apart. There was a link to similar items sold by Amazon. I tried to do an Amazon search but could not get the right terms. I seem to remember they cost $5 - $10 but I am sure if produced in bulk the cost is not over a couple dollars. Programming and shipping them probably cost more than the device. 

I would like to know how to read what is in them.

[denmarks]

3 minutes ago, twodaywonder said:

I would like to know how to read what is in them.

 

I would guess it is just a number. The central computer takes care of the rest.

[cruzsnooze]

On 4/13/2019 at 3:10 PM, Pickels said:

After all the hype and months of back and forth with the Navigator Team, (who got the darn thing working!!)/ the only benefit was the easy embarkation at the pier, and automatic opening of our cabin.  

It does not open your cabin door it merely unlocks it and you still need a free hand to open via the handle.  

[cruzsnooze]

On 4/16/2019 at 11:03 AM, JennyB1977 said:

I admittedly have not read the various threads on the OM. Nor have I done research on Princess.com. My cruise on the Royal Princess is not until January. Are the cards going away permanently at some point in favor of the medallions?

Cards will always be available at guest services because many people, especially those with pacemakers do not want to be near the magnets. There is a warning in the material you receive with the medallion warning about some medical devises are not recommended to be near these magnets.

[bstrauss3]

The official teardown is here:

 

https://fccid.io/2ANQX-01042017/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-3614296

[scottb80]

I know this post is old but I thought I'd give it a shot. Our first Princess cruise with a Medallion is this Saturday. I have a lanyard to hold the medallion but it's kind of awkward. So I took a round Neodymium magnet I had and used it to hold the medallion to my shirt by placing the magnet on the inside, like a badge holder. Does anyone think this will interfere with the medallions electronics? How often do you have to hand the medallion to cruise personnel?

[MelbTone]

I'm saving my medallions as souvenirs but some public spirited individual should send one to Big Clive whose electronic YouTube videos are the best. https://www.youtube.com/@bigclivedotcom

[mivers1]

On 12/16/2019 at 11:08 AM, Vexorg said:

Would it be possible to get better pictures of the smaller ICs?  Haven't been able to find much on those based on what I can see, although it looks like there's a clock crystal (presumably to provide timing to the 52832)  and most likely some sort of amplifier.  I'm guessing some of the EEs hanging around here can probably do a better job of figuring that out than I can.

 

In bulk quantities I'm guessing the 52832 chips probably cost around $2 each,  and there's probably another $1-2 worth of other components there and the shells can be made for pennies, so the cost to Princess for one of these is probably around $4-5.  Expensive compared to cruise cards, but probably worth the benefits they get from them.  

Appears to also have a Dialog DA14697 (2023 Medallions) multicore wireless controller / programmable sensor node controller. 
 

Data sheet: https://datasheetspdf.com/mobile/1347612/DialogSemiconductor/DA14697/1

 

[mivers1]

On 12/16/2019 at 12:54 PM, brisalta said:

 

Except that information is already available to Princess because they record your card information for every bar drink and casino game you play.

But the granularity of the information now is so much better.  How long did you spend at ‘x’ venue, where do you spend your time at, etc. 

[MacMadame]

On 1/3/2020 at 12:18 PM, denmarks said:

I saw another post where someone else took one apart. There was a link to similar items sold by Amazon. I tried to do an Amazon search but could not get the right terms. 

Air Tag accessory (the Apple Air tag and the medallion are the same size)

[RocknRoll22]

On 12/28/2023 at 9:59 PM, mivers1 said:

But the granularity of the information now is so much better.  How long did you spend at ‘x’ venue, where do you spend your time at, etc. 

That's a question I actually have. Are the Medallions really needed.

 

I see they unlock the door and are used to swipe for onboard purchases, but are they a necessity, or just a gimmick, so Princess can track our every move?

 

We aren't interested in being found for a drink or food delivery, I'm fine with just walking up and getting it directly. Not really interested in Princess knowing which bathroom I use, or how long I stand listening to a band, or which chair I'm sitting in. I'm not that important... LOL..

 

All our previous cruises I used the standard swipe card. Is that still an option, or is the tracking Medallion the only choice?

[mtnesterz]

1 hour ago, RocknRoll22 said:

All our previous cruises I used the standard swipe card. Is that still an option, or is the tracking Medallion the only choice?

Yes, you can, or at least used to be able to, ask for a cruise card at Passenger Services instead of the Medallion.

If you feel that you are being watched, then the reason for that is to know how many people are at the events, the ones you like to attend, so the more that go, they will offer more of that. It would seem to work in your favor to be, "seen."

Also, some of the wall panels, or the app, can be used to find cabin mates, which is handy. That can't happen with the cards.

You can keep the Medallion in something metal like a foil tea ball, mint case, pill box or Faraday card sleve and your Medallion can't be read. To each their own. Personally, I'm not concerned except in the ways it benefits me.

 

 

[Rick&Jeannie]

For those that are really that concerned about your privacy...how is this any different with the HUNDREDS of recording security cameras on the ship?