Uses For NFC Tags

AndyCr15 · 26 Apr 2012 at 07:50

NFC will soon be standard on phones I think, tags themselves can be bought for only £5.50 for 5, so how can they be used?

At present I have two by my front door, coming home and leaving. Set to turn WiFi off and set to vibrate as I leave, do the reverse as I come home.

I have one at work that does similar and will put one on my car holder to turn WiFi off, Bluetooth on and open the car app.

(I bought NFC Task Launcher so I could write the tags)

What I'm wondering, are there any other clever uses of NFC tags?

sunny007 · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:38

Can the tags work with the bb 9900 ?

AndyCr15 · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:39

I don't know. Maybe ask someone that owns one, they should know more about the phone.

Myshra · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:45

sunny007 said:
Can the tags work with the bb 9900 ?

This is only half the battle, once you have the tag it has to be able to do something with it if you get what i mean.

chiggz · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:50

Although you didn't intend it, good review post! Didn't know tags were so cheap and easily programmable!

chiggz · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:52

Maybe I can link it with Fing to wake my PC on LAN! Now that'd be cool at work!!!

Cosimo · 26 Apr 2012 at 08:59

I like the idea of having one in the car to turn on Bluetooth for the in-car phone system.

Begbie · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:04

Does NFC not need to be turned on for this to work?

I mean will it not be a battery drain?

Cosimo · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:08

Begbie said:
Does NFC not need to be turned on for this to work?

I mean will it not be a battery drain?

Yes it would have to be and battery drain may be an issue but it is probably no worse than having WiFi switched on all the time.

xGBHxPegasus · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:15

Do you actually need to tap the tags for it to work? Or does it work say from a couple of meters?

AndyCr15 · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:15

As it's close range, I don't think it uses a lot of power. I have it on and still get 16 hours on my One X.

chiggz said:
Maybe I can link it with Fing to wake my PC on LAN! Now that'd be cool at work!!!

Interesting idea. You can patch Tasker into NFC Task Launcher I think, but I never figured out Tasker

Let us know if you can do it. I would love to add this to my 'arrive home' NFC tag

AndyCr15 · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:17

BOBPegasus said:
Do you actually need to tap the tags for it to work? Or does it work say from a couple of meters?

You have to be pretty close to them, tbh I would have security concerns if it was a meter or so.

These are the Sony ones, which didn't work like normal ones on my Nexus, but the idea is the same. You can see the distance needed

AndyCr15 · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:18

chiggz said:
Although you didn't intend it, good review post! Didn't know tags were so cheap and easily programmable!

Well I kinda did. I didn't realise it was so easy until a few weeks back. I've been thinking to do a little article, but would like some cooler uses for it first. Hence this thread

xGBHxPegasus · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:18

AndyCr15 said:
You have to be pretty close to them, tbh I would have security concerns if it was a meter or so.

These are the Sony ones, which didn't work like normal ones on my Nexus, but the idea is the same. You can see the distance needed

Yeh had a read of the NFC Task Launcher, seems like a cool concept although I dont have the GS2 with the NFC chip in it I dont think

Will have to wait for the GS3 to have a fiddle

chiggz · 26 Apr 2012 at 09:39

sunny007 said:
Can the tags work with the bb 9900 ?

I read this on the same item on eBay:

Existing NFC enabled BlackBerry devices such as the 9900, 9360 etc do not recognise 1K tags which, according to RIM, is due to "licensing constraints". We hope their commercial decision will be reversed to allow existing BlackBerry devices to support MIFARE Classic 1K and DESFire tags (MIFARE mode) in future firmware updates.

Please ask us for MIFARE Ultralight C if you have need a greater memory capacity than our regular MIFARE Ultralight. These are both compatible with existing BlackBerry devices.

Might be worth looking for alternatives that do work...

Kreeeee · 26 Apr 2012 at 10:09

Much easier to just use Llama to sort out wifi/3g/volume.

Microwave · 26 Apr 2012 at 10:15

If you use NFC tag writer to give an NFC chip a list of activities you are limited by the amount of storage on the NFC chip itself, which varies.

A neat work around for this is to create a task in Tasker which could be an infinitely long list of actions (turn on wifi, disable rotation, increase screen brightness etc.) Then, you write the Tasker task to the NFC chip using the tag writer app, which only uses up a small amount of space.

That way you don't have to spend more money on larger capacity NFC chips. Hope that makes sense!

AndyCr15 · 26 Apr 2012 at 10:22

Yeah, it does... but Tasker isn't very user friendly tbh

chiggz · 26 Apr 2012 at 10:26

Microwave said:
... create a task in Tasker which could be an infinitely long list of actions (turn on wifi, disable rotation, increase screen brightness etc.) Then, you write the Tasker task to the NFC chip using the tag writer app, which only uses up a small amount of space.

That way you don't have to spend more money on larger capacity NFC chips. Hope that makes sense!

Plus it can ensure security. My idea on turning my PC on... wouldn't want just anyone's phone turning it on, just mine.

Edit: actually the example above is a bit silly, my specific phone would be required for the task in the first place.

FNGsam · 26 Apr 2012 at 10:50

I'd be tempted to write an automatic whatsapp message/email into the tag instructions as well so you know when it has been used, just in case it doesn't only work for your phone?