Apex conversion with spectrum antenna and LED

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some years ago I explored using subdermal implant to do 2fa and unlocking (on linux), I was told here the apex was gonna come and implement a lot of the stuff needed and I see things have progressed a lot! this seems to be perfectly feasible with the apex line now and a lot of auth/crypto stuff is fully supported now, FIDO2 makes this all very workable.

I am an EU resident and I am seriously thinking of getting the apex conversion kit so it can do payments on top of everything the apex can, I would very much like an LED in it when it pays, it’s my understanding from reading the forum that the best range comes from the module version and not the spectrum version, correct? any real world experience with POS readers?

does anybody has a picture showing how bright the LED in the apex spectrum (the converted one) is? I searched the forum, love all the blinkys around, but couldn’t find one for the apex spectrum installed.

I would love to have an LED turn on when my hands are close to my keyboard (mechanical keyboard, fully moddable with NFC hardware) but I think that the hands would almost always be too far from the reader to actually turn the LED on, I’m thiking of a wrist placement, correct?

any experience in getting a developer account from fidesmo to use their developer api to deploy custom apps to it?

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We have been experimenting with LEDs on the Apex module but it’s very experimental at the moment and would require a custom work order.

I pay with the module everywhere. I used to have spectrums and the module vastly outperforms the spectrum on certain models of payment terminal, but most it’s on par.

Your best bet is to probably go with an xLED or collection of them.. probably LF (125khz) and build an LF power coil into your keyboard.

They don’t do that anymore. If you have an app you want to deploy and it’s open source we can look at publishing it so it can be deployed to the Apex. Otherwise there’s the flexSecure product.

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well, everything here is experimental, so when you say “very” experimental should I be worried? :slight_smile:

I might be onboard with this and ask for a custom work order if you think you want to do it, the spectrum seems to me also has more limited placing options due to the size, the scheme also shows the same limitations for the module version though? wrist/arm/watch placement would be my choice, even though P1,2,3 seem more convenient for payment.

they both seem to require a scalpel installation if I’m not mistaken, I just contacted the only partner listed in the map in Italy but I suspect they are out of business, there are other body modifications shops around though (I’ve read the guidelines on how to contact them) and I might even get a surgeon to do it, there is one in my circle of friends, I hit him up to ask what he thinks about all this, will let you know :wink:

since this is my first ever experience with chip implants I might just start with an xLED in P0 to see how the installation procedure goes for me, what about removal if I then want to upgrade to something else in the same position? is it way more complex than installation?

I’m a developer so I would love to tinker with these, I saw the flexSecure option but a payment enabled one beats the usage of a custom one in my book, and javacard make me cry, claude code could help but still…maybe on the other hand, we’ll see.

the physics of the LF frequencies seems way better for the keyboard embedded reader/presence sensing kind of thing, you do know your thing :grin:.

But let’s say I also want something that replies with a UUID later on to actually do presence sensing and not just the illumination, HF will always requires very close proximity to achieve induction/power harvesting, correct? I saw options like the xEM/next/xmagic but no LED LF in those, correct?

so many questions, I know, thanks for answering :innocent:

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yeah same difficulty but actually the spectrum is slightly easier as it’s resin not polymer and technically smaller surface area so it can put up with install locations the module may have trouble with like directly over bone / tendons in the hand etc.

personally i have two modules, one in each arm just above the wrist area. i pay for things all the time. my left arm gets the most use as i pay at drive-throughs all the time and left is the only viable arm to extend out the window.

yep both need scalpel work

you can try out one of the javacard test cards and if you come up with something cool you want on your Apex, we can talk about publication.

just fyi, a UUID is a specific term for an exact type of 128 bit identifier defined by RFC 9562. HF tag UIDs have between 56 bits and 96 bits and are defined by various HF standards like ISO14443, ISO15693, etc.

To be honest, at the sizes of the xLED antenna coils you are going to see almost no difference in performance between HF and LF.. so a NExT v2 is going to be another option if you want HF with UID capabilities.

thanks for being here!

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My opinion, this is a waste of a prime location for an xSeries.

If you want blinky :blinky_green: , go for a NEXTV2 as it has more functionality but still with the blink.

Its pretty straight forward, but why do that if you dont have to.

I’ve done a few, but if I planned better, I wouldn’t have needed to. Other times were for upgrades.

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