Almost all modern-day smartphones and watches are enabled with something called NFC, which stands for near-field communication. This NFC smart chip in your device can offer many useful and exciting features for users to get the most from their mobile and smartwatch devices. Whether you were aware of an NFC smart chip in your device or not, it is likely active as we speak.
No matter though, as an NFC chip cannot do anything until you intentionally hold it over another NFC tag or device. Just like many other modern features of a smartphone and watch, NFC is there for when you need it, but you don’t need to use it if you don’t want to. If you want to know more about what an NFC phone can do, keep reading to see how NFC could make your life easier.
What is NFC and How Does It Work?
Phone NFC (near-field communication) is a type of technology that can enable smart devices such as mobile phones and smart watches to exchange data between other devices. It can also enable users to read NFC-equipped cards, but both must be done over a short distance. NFC is now becoming so clever that people use it on things such as business cards.
If you were around for or were lucky enough to have some of the first mobile phones with Bluetooth, you may remember how sending songs or pictures to one another meant holding both phones close together to get the connection. Well, NFC is a lot like that. It’s also what is used in contactless cards, which allows you to pay without inserting your card into the card reader. NFC on phones can also allow you to pay using a contactless through your phone, but it has many other uses too.
The technology behind NFC is much like RFID, which stands for radio-frequency identification. This type of technology is commonly used for keychain fobs, such as those that might give you access to a car park at work, or your apartment block. NFC is a newer and improved version of RFID, as it can offer better features and advanced security, but both technologies have a lot in common.
What Does NFC Mean on My Phone?
If you have NFC on your phone, you can make use of certain apps and technologies, if they are something you are interested in using and could benefit your daily life. NFC on a phone can come in handy and the apps that use it are easy to set up. Unlike Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, there is nothing you need to do to make NFC work, other than place your phone a few inches away from another device that is NFC enabled; your phone will detect what it needs to do, and voilà.
Just like many other new technologies, when NFC was first introduced it wasn’t too popular and the first apps ever released didn’t gain much traction. One such NFC app was called the Android Beam, which was created by Google back in 2011 and has only recently been removed from newer Android devices.
Android Beam is a data transfer tool that uses both Bluetooth and NFC to send videos, contacts, photos, webpages, and more from one phone to another, just by holding them together. This is very similar to AirDrop, which is a feature on Apple devices powered by Bluetooth and Wi-Fi that enables users to send images, files, etc., from one Apple device to another, such as from your iPhone to a Mac.
Unfortunately, Android Beam was a great idea that didn’t go down so well with phone users, as most people didn’t want to hold their phones together for the several minutes (or hours) it could take to transfer videos and images over a slow NFC connection. Google then created another feature called Nearby Share which offered a way to send files between phones that also used Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, which, again, is much like AirDrop but for Android phones.
The initial excitement of NFC smartphones eventually died down and businesses began to look into more useful ways that NFC could be used, which led to NFC apps and features that are practical and well-suited. As RFID had already been used for things like security tags and contactless cards, businesses found that applying the same features to smartphones but with NFC was a perfect integration.
What Can NFC Do on My Phone?
So, now onto one of the most important questions, what can NFC do on my phone? There are many NFC features available on smartphones today, with some more well-known than others. One such feature is mobile payments, which is something that many smartphone users hold dear. Next time you go into your local supermarket, just take notice of how people pay for their shopping; you’ll probably notice a good percentage of people pay with their smartphones.
As most people carry their smartphones everywhere they go, it makes sense that they can also be used as a wallet. This became a big thing back in 2014 when Apple introduced Apple Pay on their iPhones. Google already had a mobile payment solution dating before this but hadn’t put the money into marketing and getting banks on board quite like Apple did.
These days, you can use your Google or Apple wallet with almost any card, just like you would a contactless card. The added protection of using your phone or smartwatch rather than a contactless card is that you must unlock your phone to use this feature, either using your thumbprint, passcode, or face scanner. With this added security feature, many banks increased or completely removed the transaction cap, as the risk of fraud was lowered significantly.
If you need help setting up your Google or Apple wallet, there are plenty of handy online guides available. You may also be able to use NFC on your phone for other awesome features, such as unlocking doors in your hotel, home, or office. NFC is not only for contactless cards; it can also be used to store other digital keys, so long as your home, office, or hotel has a smart lock.
NFC is also being used in many smartphone accessories, to make the initial pairing quicker. This can include items like headphones, which usually only connect through Bluetooth and sometimes take a few steps to get connected. NFC chips are another cool feature that can be used across Apple and Android devices.
You can purchase NFC tags online and stick them around your home, wherever you think you’d get the most use from them. You can then set each of these tags to do something different, such as a tag beside your bed that turns your phone onto sleep mode or begins to play your bedtime relaxation playlist. There are even NFC coasters that enable other smartphone users to connect to the Wi-Fi network in your home when they place their device over the coaster.
Which Phones have NFC?
Many modern devices are equipped with NFC, as it is a common feature in both iPhones and Android devices. You may not have an NFC phone if it was bought a long time ago, or if you purchased a cheap handset from another country. Almost every Android device has NFC, and every iPhone from iPhone 6 onwards is NFC enabled.
To ensure that NFC works as it should, you need to have your system up to date with the newest version of iOS or Android, especially if you want to use the newest NFC features. This could impact how you use NFC on your phone if you have an older phone that cannot support the newest iOS or Android. If you have a smartphone from 2017 onwards, you can most likely use and run NFC features.
To find out what NFC technologies are available and enabled on your phone, you can check the guidebook that came with your mobile or search online. You may also want to take your smartphone to the shop that you bought it from, as the customer service team will be able to show you how to get the most from the NFC features on your smartphone. You could also ask a friend, family member, or colleague to help if they already know how to use NFC on their phone.
NFC: The Future of Payments
NFC is a passive technology that is built into many smartphones, which gives every phone user the option of whether to use this technology or not. If you already use contactless cards, making the switch to NFC payments via your smartphone is a safer and easier way to pay online and in-store.
You can also use NFC for things like digital keys or NFC chips, although these are typically more advanced features. As NFC is passive, there is no need to disable it on your phone if you don’t want to use it, as it would only work if you held it over an NFC device and had already preloaded your card information.