What is NFC in Mobile Phone and How Do You Use NFC?
The NFC feature comes in numerous phones, usually smartphones ranging from medium to high end price should be packed with this NFC feature. However, you might have been wondering what we can really do with this NFC feature right? Let’s get to the point now.
What is NFC in mobile phone?
NFC stands for Near Field Communication, which is capable of transferring data between devices that are placed near a few centimeters apart. The transfer of data comprises features such as making bank card wave payment, NFC tags, pair with NFC Bluetooth device instantly and etc.
Is my mobile phone comes with NFC?
You shall be able to find numerous phones that come with NFC typically. NFC feature also available in most budget smartphones; however we shall double check if your smartphone really comes with it.
The few ways that tell whether your phone has NFC or not is by looking at the back of the phone which is normally printed with ‘N’ logo. Some phones were printed on the battery such as the Samsung phone, which had an older removable battery, that you will not see now in the non-removable battery mobile phone.
Still, you can easily find out if your mobile phone comes with NFC or not as following:
For ANDROID Phone, you should see the NFC setting as following;
Go to Settings > Connections > NFC and payment > toggle left to enable.
If you still can’t find them, you can open up the settings menu and type at the search icon on top with “NFC” and the option will show up if your phone has it, otherwise your phone does not have it.
For iPhone, you should see the NFC setting as following;
Go to Settings > Control Center> NFC Tag Reader.
1. Android Beam (NFC) was no longer a supported feature.
You probably were familiar with the sharing of location, photos, videos, location and other files through NFC, this feature is called Android Beam, or S-Beam (in Samsung phones) feature, but no longer supported by Android on this feature. Android Beam was not usable during the release of Android 10, which was being replaced by a new feature called Nearby Share. You can use Nearby Share to transfer files from a device within close proximity wirelessly which pretty much is more convenient and easier to share files compared to relying on the NFC feature.
This wave payment feature has been around for some time already, and yet many still have not really given it a try, especially for those who are afraid of how secure and safe using this technology is.
If you have never used wave payment with your mobile phone, basically it scans your payment wave bank cards and keeps it in your smartphone’s apps called Samsung Pay or Google pay (work on any Android 5.0 Lollipop and higher phones). You can safely use it thanks to the privacy and strong security built into every payment in “Samsung Pay” or “Google Pay” that is much safer than swiping your card or paying with cash.
Other than making payment using the NFC feature, you can also use it to control smart devices by tapping the NFC tag nearby to the related smart devices you want to control.
For instance, if you want to control a smart light bulb at your home, you can configure apps to switch on the light bulb by tapping your phone on the NFC tag that you can stick on the wall or anywhere to act as a switch.
This NFC tag is a non-powered chip, which is small and thin enough to be embedded onto items such as sticker tags, posters, business cards, wristbands, key fobs, hang tags, medication bottles and more.
This microchip can just store a tiny amount of data, which you can read with another device, and whereby different types of tags have different memory capacities. NFC tags can be stored with different data types in it such as URL, contact info, commands and settings that the mobile phone can read to execute when in contact with them.
To read or write data to the tags, you are required to have NFC tag reading or writing apps, such as Trigger app. The NFC tags programmed with this app could only be picked up by devices that have this similar app installed.
For example you would want to program the NFC tags and place them around your house to turn it into a smart home system by tapping the NFC tags.
Where to buy the best programmable small and thin NFC tags stickers?
4. Instantly Pair with Bluetooth Devices that have NFC.
NFC pairing instead of Bluetooth pairing was even faster and simpler without waiting for connection to process with scanning and pin keying in, whereby NFC pairing was just an instant connection by enabling NFC and tap closer on the NFC Logo Devices such as the:
Bluetooth speaker
Bluetooth headphone,
NFC-enabled WearOS devices
Apple Watch
Video game controllers
More.
Here are Bluetooth devices that come with NFC for your convenient and instant pairing feature.
Summary:
In the meantime, the feature of NFC revolves around the simple wave payment without carrying around a bunch or payment cards, program and control NFC tags for smart home setup, and instant bluetooth device pairing with NFC to reduce time taken. There are future trends that more implementations with NFC features are getting useful which includes; NFC utilization for wireless charging up to 1W, Unlock cars with latest digital keys, NFC-enabled smart watch technology and prevent identity fraud with NFC identity document.
December 30, 2021 0
