Best RFID Blocking / Jamming Sleeves

by Product Review Lad | Last Updated: September 20, 2021

This article aims to provide answers for questions regarding RFID blocking / jamming sleeves. Including what they are, how they work and most importantly what is the best RFID blocking / jamming sleeve.

With the rise in contactless card crime, many RFID blocking and jamming products have become available, helping combat this theft. Card skimming is where an unauthorized person gets your card details, using an RFID reader near your bank cards. According to the Evening Standard, in the UK occurrence of this theft increased by 128% from 2017 to 2018, and looks to rise.

There are several products available to help stop card skimming, they are RFID blocking wallets, purses, sleeves, and cards. Wallets, purses and sleeves work by acting as a Faraday cage. Creating a screen around your cards which stops electromagnetic fields interacting with the cards. The RFID blocking / jamming cards are the same shape and size as a regular credit card and interfere with signals from a card reader and block transactions.

This article purely focuses on RFID blocking / jamming sleeves. If you want the best available wallets or purses check out this article. For the best blocking / jamming cards view this article. 

RFID blocking/jamming sleeves offer some distinct advantages over wallets, purses, and cards. The main benefit is that sleeves take up very little space, this is particularly useful for people who frequently travel or spend lots of time outdoors.

Best RFID Blocking / Jamming Sleeves

What are RFID blocking / jamming sleeves and how do they work

RFID blocking/jamming sleeves are like a pocket that your contactless credit cards slide into. The sleeve produces a Faraday cage around the card so that no signals operating at 13.56MHz can interact with said card. Typically, these sleeves help protect your credit, debit, and bank cards along with driving licenses. Some suppliers also sell sleeves for your passport too.

The easiest way to check if your RFID blocking/jamming sleeve works is to head to a supermarket with your contactless card inside the sleeve.  When coming to pay, keep your card inside the sleeve and place the sleeve and card on the contactless payment machine. If the card is read and payment taken the sleeve does not work. If the cards are not read or cause an error the blocking/jamming material works.  If payment is taken then the blocking/jamming product is defective and ineffective and should be returned for replacement.

One of the main things to remember when using an RFID blocking/jamming sleeve is that each sleeve is built to hold a single card.

**Note** – A quick hello to anyone reading this, I’m Alastair AKA Product Review Lad. I started this site to help people choose the best products to buy, and hopefully what you’re about to read will aid you in your choice. This page includes affiliate links to the likes of Amazon, which if you make a purchase I qualify to earn a (typically small) commission. Don’t worry as this won’t cost you anything, the likes of Amazon pay any commissions. Thank you in advance for your support as this helps Product Review Lad to create the best reviews.

The best RFID blocking / jamming sleeves

A quick summary ranking the best sleeves is shown in the table below. A detailed review of each follows the table.

Prices pulled from the Amazon Product Advertising API on:

1. Alpine Rivers

Alpine Rivers offer the best RFID blocking/jamming sleeves the market has to offer. To top this they offer their product as a bundle package including 14 credit card holders and 4 passport protectors. Ideal to help protect the family. Alpine Rivers sleeves are very durable, hard to tear and cope well with getting wet. The design is very smart-looking and sleek, with the sleeves coming in a range of three colors. 

When buying from Alpine Rivers you have the choice of sideloaded or top-loaded card sleeves. The difference between the two is where you put the card into the sleeve, either the narrow or long edge. You can either purchase 7 side-loader and 7 top loader sleeves or 14 top loader sleeves.

2. DEEZOMO RFID Blocking Sleeve

Deezomo has produced a very unique card sleeve and it can cause quite a positive reaction when taking these out of your pocket. When purchasing you receive 10 sleeves, 2 of each unique design. Three of the designs feature the flag of the United States while the other 2 feature the Statue of Liberty and other American greatness. 

The blocking sleeves are durable and hard-wearing. The design is what separates DEEZOMO from its competitors with very aesthetically pleasing sleeves. The blocking ability is very good when tested and throughout daily use. 

3. Valonic

Valonic offers one of the more unique RFID blocking sleeves available. These sleeves come with a transparent front with a thumb recess and a slotted hole for easy card access. These cards have gone through German TÜV testing to validate the blocking and jamming strength of their sleeves, something most of their competitors have not done.

There are only really 2 negatives to Valonic’s jamming sleeve, some of the sleeves can be a little tight for a credit card but, will loosen after some use. The second negative is that the transparent front means that some of your card details are visible, typically this isn’t a major issue.

4. Identity Stronghold

Identity Stronghold has produced a great credit card and passport sleeve, it has great blocking ability and fits your cards and passports with a good fit. The reason why Identity Stronghold comes in 4th and not higher is that the durability of these sleeves is not as good as some competitors.

When purchasing you receive 16 card sleeves and 4 passport sleeves, all come with the same design with a circular pattern on one side and product information on the other. It is a clean professional-looking sleeve that does the job it’s supposed to do.

5. Holic Frolic

Holic Frolic has produced RFID Blocking / Jamming sleeves with an animal design theme, similar to DEEZOMO with the United States styled sleeves. You receive 8 sleeves when purchasing, the sizing is typically a good fit but can occasionally be too tight for your cards. Hence the low rating in this review.

Both the blocking ability and durability seem good although the competitors seem to have a slight advantage.

6. Daitet

The lowest rated sleeves are by Daitet. This is because they are the least visually appealing but also, they seem to have the biggest issue with manufacturing control. Some sleeves are too tight to take credit cards. When buying 10 sleeves you expect to be able to fit 10 cards, this isn’t always the case with Daitet.

On the plus side, these RFID cards are the most durable along with Alpine Rivers and offer good blocking ability.

Hopefully, this article has answered your RFID blocking / Jamming sleeve questions. If you have any questions, recommendations, or anything else then please contact me via my contact page.

Product Review Lad

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