NFC Technology Applications in Daily Life and Industry

It’s always fascinating to talk about NFC technology applications. Of course, there will be a long explanation about it, especially with the rapid development of this technology. But, it’s never been tiring. Especially with popular topic like this.

As we know, NFC or Near Field Communication, is a technology that is massively adopted by manufacturers around the world to be applied in their products. Therefore, there will always be new thing to talk about.

And it is really promising for the sake of future technology. Nowadays, there are many manufacturers start to equipt their products with NFC. By this additional feature, it of course adds the functionality of the product.

For example, NFC can provide faster pairing when we tap our phone that has NFC to the wireless speaker with NFC tag in it. This connection is even simpler and faster than traditional Bluetooth pairing method. And many other applications can be executed easier and faster with the additional NFC feature.

Due to above reason, we are going to discuss about this technology in deeper in this article. But, beforetalking further about the main topic of this discussion, which is NFC technology Applications, firstly let’s discuss about what NFC technology actually is.

Taken from Wikipedia, NFC technology is defined as a communication protocol sets which make two portable electronic devices able to communicate between each other in the around 5 cm of distance. These devices for example like smartphone, tablet, enterprise digital assistance, digital camera, printers, wireless headphone, or others.

The root of NFC is Radio-frequency Identification technology, or what we usually call RFID.

Basically, RFID is the technology that uses radio waves resulted by reader and tag. These waves allows compatible devices to communicate or to supply power between each other, so the communication or file transfer between them becomes possible. This is the basic principle used by NFC in its operation along with several variations.

NFC Technology Knowledge Base

NFC Technology Applications
future of nfc technology

1. What does NFC do?

Near field communication (NFC) is a set of communication protocols that enable two electronic devices, one of which is usually a portable device such as a smartphone while the other is a tag, to establish communication by tapping them to each other within 4 cm (2 in) of distance.

2. What is NFC card?

This is the mode used when you interact with an NFC advert tag. The final mode of operation is card emulation, whereby the NFC device can be used like a smart or contactless credit card in order to make payments or tap into public transport systems.

3. What is an NFC reader?

The clue is in the name: Near Field Communications. NFC is a set of standards for portable devices. It allows them to establish peer-to-peer radio communications, passing data from one device to another by touching them or putting them very close together.

Read also: What You Need to Know about the Difference between RFID and NFC

As its name, Near Field Communication, NFC basically is a short range technology of wireless that requires at least 5 – 10 cm distance of communication. Commonly, this technology operates in 13.56 MHz frequency with ISO/IEC 18000-3 interface.

While for the rate, NFC rates ranging between 106 kbit/s until 424 kbit/s. Further, in its operation, this kind of network is always involving a initiator, which generates the RF as well as power, and a target.

The target usually found in the form of tags, key fobs, sticker, card, or others. When the initiator signal comes to the target, then the peer-to-peer communication between them happens.

NFC Technology Applications

NFC Reader
nfc technology in mobile

One of the attractions of NFC technology is on the “tap-and-go” function. Many people think that this function is really easy, practical, and functional. That’s why it can be applied in many fields such as logistic, commerce, store, and many more. Well, the operation is simple though.

After you shop in a certain store for example, you can pay your belonging with only tapping your NFC-featured mobile phone to the NFC reader on the cashier. And then the electronic payment will be automatically transferred. More than that, NFC technology is also applied in many other forms of application. So, with such high functionality, Near Field Communication has wide areas of applications as stated below.

NFC Technology Applications in Commerce

NFC Technology Applications

The first list of NFC technology applications is in commerce. This application is boosted with the rising popularity of contactless payment system. In Android 4.4 above for example, Google has introduced a system called Host Card Emulation.

This is a platform that supports secure transaction through NFC network. It can be used for loyalty programs, payments, transit passes, card access, and other kinds of service.

Then in 2014, the competitor, Apple, also introduced a similar platform called Apple Pay. Apple claims that this platform is more secure with stronger data encryption.

Read also: The Application of NFC Technology in iPhone, Is It Worth?

NFC Technology Applications in Bootstrapping Other Connections

One of the attractions in NFC technology applications is that this network can be used to bootstrap another wireless network. It is the low speed connection and simple set up of it that makes this function possible.

As an example, we know that one called Android Beam software that uses NFC to establish connection between Bluetooth devices when they are doing connection then disable this connection after the file transfer completion.

Other mobile devices manufacturers such as Blackberry, Samsung, Nokia, and Sony, also use NFC to pair their Bluetooth headset, speakers, and media player in one single tap.

NFC Technology Applications in Smartphone Automation

NFC Smartphone Automation
advantages of nfc

This is one of the possible NFC Technology applications that will be really useful. This application will involve a smartphone and NFC tag, usually in form of sticker, which is placed in a certain place such as meeting room.

So, when people are about doing meeting, they don’t need to switch the profile of their phone. Simply, they need to tap their phone on to the NFC tag sticker and the profile of their phone will be changed automatically.

NFC Technology Applications in Gaming

NFC technology applications also reach the gaming world. As we know, the development of NFC technology is running so massively. This is why many industries, including gaming, try to adopt this technology to be complied with the recent technological progress.

It was Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure that was firstly adopted NFC in the gaming world to customize the data. Further, NFC technology is also applied by Nintendo in its product, Wii U through the application of Gamepad.

Other NFC Technology Applications

NFC Technology Applications
nfc technology business card

Besides all the things above, there are several other applications of NFC technology. For nfc technology examples, we can find the NFC technology is applied in the Social Networking. In this application, you can share several kinds of information such as files, videos, photos, contacts, and other data.

Further, NFC technology is also valuable to be used in Identity and access tokens. In this application, NFC can act as electronic card of identity documents. By using NFC in this kind of function, you can get more secure with encrypted data.

With the rapid growth of technology, we believe that the NFC Technology applications will not stop only on the things above. But, it will be developed over and over till we get the ideal application of it.

Whatever it is, we hope that the application of this technology will bring good to take all of us into the better life. Finally, that’s all of the things that we need to share regarding to the NFC Technology Applications.

May this article can be useful, and able to update your technological understanding. And if you think that it really is, we welcome you to share it in your personal page. So, the information here can be spread wider around the network. Thank you.