Anyone making use of NFC tags yet?

Ive been looking over the xda forums regarding nfc tags and see a few people there are playing around with them.

Just wondering if anyone here has gotten any and what kind of uses have you come up with for them?

I'm looking at buying some maybe next week

Only ideas I have so far are:
- On the bedside locker, 1 swipe to set it up for the night, set an alarm and dim screen. Second swipe to set it back to normal for daytime use
- Front door, 1st, turn on wifi, 2nd turn off wifi
- In the car, 1st, turn on bluetooth, pair with earpiece, 2nd turn off bluetooth

Funniest one Ive heard of so far is some guy stuck one on his reciep for muffins. Once they went in the oven he swiped and it set a timer on the phone so his muffins wouldnt burn

Edited to add the following

If anyone doesn't know what NFC is, here is the wikipedia link

I dont want to post links to suppliers for fear of running foul of mods, however there are UK suppliers and a bit of digging should find a few options for people so don't go buying from the states etc and paying a fortune for shipping.

Also, unless you are running android 4.0.3 make sure you get your tags pre-formatted (NDFE) otherwise you wont be able to use them until you get updated to 4.0.3

To set them up you will need something like NFC Task Launcher. Its 1.39 on the android market and there are free alternatives but this one seems to be the one everyone is using. Havent tried it myself yet (havent ordered the tags) so cant say either way. If someone finds a free alternative thats just as good or better please let me know

Here's a video showing how they work and how you program them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFwa4vwfrTc

love that turbo

Was looking at this yesterday. As soon as I get my Nexus next week ill will be getting me some.

PrzemoF

Any idea how to find out if my S2 is nfc-enabled? I bought it some time ago from Meteor, but runs cyanogenmod now. Nfc "Tag Action" app runs fine (no errors), but I don't have any ncf tag to make a real test.

love that turbo

PrzemoF wrote: »

Any idea how to find out if my S2 is nfc-enabled? I bought it some time ago from Meteor, but runs cyanogenmod now. Nfc "Tag Action" app runs fine (no errors), but I don't have any ncf tag to make a real test.

Dont think the S2 has NFC

take everything

That is extremely cool.
Is that the Nexus in the video.

Goodshape

Had almost forgotten about NFC. Gotta get me some of those!

take everything wrote: »

Is that the Nexus in the video.

It's actually the older Nexus, the "Nexus S".

PrzemoF

love that turbo wrote: »

Dont think the S2 has NFC

According to that [1][2] it has, but I saw some info that it might be disabled...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCnAfYzCThU

akamossie

There's an app named Z-Device Test in the Android Market; it can detect NFC hardware.

If you want to know if your Galaxy s2 have it

subway

i dont really understand the NFC implementation.
can someone explain to me, in future, will this be able to replace my leap card, my dublin bikes card etc. will it be a contactless payment system or is it just a gimmick as in the video above?

while its pretty cool, i cant see it being much use if its limited to that kind of thing.

my ideal would be multiple cards stored in my phone, which can be activated indivudually either through one main app, their own app or shortcuts. PIN protection can be added for payment systems, either on the phone or at the POS

Goodshape

subway wrote: »

my ideal would be multiple cards stored in my phone, which can be activated indivudually either through one main app, their own app or shortcuts. PIN protection can be added for payment systems, either on the phone or at the POS

Yes:

http://www.google.com/wallet/

Atomic Pineapple

Essentially your phone will remove the need to carry travel cards, credit/debit cards, rail tickets, cinema tickets, vouchers etc....

subway

well thats a relief, i had been building myself up for never needing a wallet again and then i saw this thread and thought i had imagined it all

Atomic Pineapple

subway wrote: »

well thats a relief, i had been building myself up for never needing a wallet again and then i saw this thread and thought i had imagined it all

Don't go throwing it away yet, it will take years before people in a country like Ireland will accept things like that let alone companies and services will implement the back end so it'll be a long time reaching here, whereas in Japan I'd imagine its already happening.

subway

well, at the very least it will let me reduce my wallet size by a few cards
dublin bikes and leap both use NFC i believe?

do you think the idea be that any card can be read and loaded on or will it be up to the company to make an android version available?

Zagato

PrzemoF wrote: »

According to that [1][2] it has, but I saw some info that it might be disabled...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCnAfYzCThU

No NFC on S2s sold in UK/Ireland, other versions may well have NFC chips

PrzemoF

Zagato wrote: »

No NFC on S2s sold in UK/Ireland, other versions may well have NFC chips

I'll have a pack of brand new nfc tags (bought on ebay) for sale soon - if you're right!

Edit:
Just tested using Z-device test - NCF is not active. I'm using Cyanogenmod (no FM radio!) and Z-device shows as there is no radio, so actually it proves that the nfc chip is not active, but it doesn't prove that it's not in the phone.
Anyway, I'll have a pack of nfc tags for sale - please PM me for details.

just got my pack of tags in the mail, cant wait to get home and try them out.

I might post up findings here if anyone is interested

Reesy

Deleted User wrote: »

...I might post up findings here if anyone is interested

Yes please! The Mrs got some free with her Sony Xperia phone so am keen to try 'em out.

Can one tag work with multiple phones - or is that configurable? I'm thinking of setting it up in the car for wifey's phone (Sony) & mine (Samsung) to activate Bluetooth & the car kit.

Anyone else care to share NFC experiences?

Riesen_Meal

Reesy wrote: »

Yes please! The Mrs got some free with her Sony Xperia phone so am keen to try 'em out.

Can one tag work with multiple phones - or is that configurable? I'm thinking of setting it up in the car for wifey's phone (Sony) & mine (Samsung) to activate Bluetooth & the car kit.

Anyone else care to share NFC experiences?

Let me know how you get on with them and if they work for all NFC capable phone's, interested in one for the car and the doorway of my house...

I genuinely ain't got a clue about them though...

mik_da_man

The one tag will work on multiple phones.
I have a tag in the car for Bluetooth, one in the office for silent, Bluetooth off etc and one at home.

I use them every day and find them really good.

Same, I use them all the time. Set up what you want to occur then write the tag. All can be done inside the app I linked above.

Also, for more complex tasks, you can use tasker app to create a series of actions to occur and then simply write the activation of the task to a tag.

At night, I have a tag by the bed, when scanned turns off wifi & sync, mutes calls, txt & email, sets my alarms for the morning.

Scan the same tag in the morning and it reverses everything.

Pretty much aanything you can do manually on your phone, you can create a task for and write to a tag. There are a few limits but not many that I've found

ED E

Have a Sony SmartTag stuck on the side of my monitor. Used it with the XS to activate Wifi and My sync app. Only ever used it every couple of months though.

Zascar

Good thread, I was wondering about this myself. I'd really like it for turning on and off bluetooth in the car. I'd also like it to be able to go gps as well but that is only occasionally. How would I do this or do i just use two of them?

Can anyone please link what tags are recommended? I have a HTC One.

Zagato

Has anyone picked up these in a bricks and mortar yet?

KAGY

Bought a couple then purchased tasker and found that tasker can do most without NFC. Location task based on Wi-Fi, night time based on time and charger status, start music when connected to dock. The car/ GPS is the only one I need NFC for - Even then I could just havea widget to toggle - your phone had to be unlocked to use NFC asa security precaution so a widget is nearly as quick

dloob

I tried them with an Xperia for while.
Had one in the car for bluetooth etc, one in the office to set to silent and turn off wifi and bluetooth, one in the house to turn on wifi.
Only actually used them for about a week.
As the phone has to be unlocked to read the tag it's as quick to just unlock and toggle the settings.

The tag in, tag out mechanism was annoying too.
So forget to tag out of the car and next time you get in and use the tag it will turn bluetooth off.

Zascar

dloob wrote: »

As the phone has to be unlocked to read the tag it's as quick to just unlock and toggle the settings.

Ah I did not know that. I wanted some for bluetooth in the car. Is this with all phones?

The new Android KitKat update has always on voice listening, and it works for commands and apps so I assume you can just unlock and say "Turn on Bluetooth".

BenEadir

Apologies for bringing up an old thread but I can't figure out how to automatically turn off a task. Like (almost) everyone else I want to use a tag to connect to the BT device in my car, turn off Wifi and keep the display on. I used Trigger (formerly NFC Task Launcher) to set up the task and program the NFC Tag and it works no problem but when I pull my phone out of the car I have to manually turn off the task and manually turn WiFi back on which is a pain in the ar$e and kind of defeats the purpose of the tag. I was hoping the task would automatically be reversed (BT off, Wifi on and Screen timeout reset to normal) once I removed the phone from the dock where the tag is located. Do I need another tag located for example on the dashboard which would act as a Tag Off???

Perhaps my expectations are too high?

Funny thing is, having set up the tag I discovered you have to unlock the phone before you can tag on (another NFC defeating pain in the ar$e activity I hadn't anticipated) so I set the task to run when I swipe open my launcher home screen (it's an option in Google Now) and it turns out I now don't even need the tag in the car at all. I can run the task just by swiping open my lock screen.

Perhaps I should find a way to disable the task and restore the normal settings when I manually turn off the screen via the power button which is what I always do when taking the phone out of the car dock???

KAGY

Just a quick reply.
You should be able to program the tag / trigger with a 2 touch option. Dont think it works out the phone is in contact with the tagh the whole time
If you're phone is rooted I think wanam xposed has a option to make phone to listen to nfc without unlocking

zl1whqvjs75cdy

Yeah I use them with my Nexus 5 and the trigger app. Have one on the beside table to turn on the alarm, dim the screen and put the phone on silent for the night time. Then one for going out the door that turns on bluetooth and mobile data for streaming music in the car. The same one turns off these and turns on wifi data when I get home. Also one in the office to turn down the ring volume and turn on automatic syncing of data. I find them super handy and would recommend. Got a strip of 10 from amazon a while back. I forget how much they were.

BenEadir

KAGY wrote: »

Just a quick reply.
You should be able to program the tag / trigger with a 2 touch option. Dont think it works out the phone is in contact with the tagh the whole time
If you're phone is rooted I think wanam xposed has a option to make phone to listen to nfc without unlocking

Thanks Kagy, wanam xposed is only for Samsung ROM's and I've got a OnePlus One.

BenEadir

Got it sorted.

I'm using Trigger (formerly NFC Task Launcher) to do the following:-

1. My unlock screen allows me to swipe and open an app or launch a Trigger task. When I insert the phone into the car cradle I'd have to unlock it to tap an NFC tag anyway but now I just unlock it to the Trigger task option and it connects to my car bluetooth, turns off WiFi and keeps the screen on.

2. I have also set another Trigger task which is triggered by disconnecting from the car Bluetooth (which naturally happens when you walk away from the car) and it is set to turn WiFi back on and reset the screen time out to the normal 2 minute setting I prefer.

It works a treat. All I have to remember to do is unlock my phone to run the car dock task and that's it. Everything else just happens automatically.

I don't even have an NFC tag in the car, I only needed it to set up the initial task but the task runs on the screen unlock rather than by tapping an NFC tag.

I'm just outlining the above in case it's useful for anyone else or in case anyone else can suggest improvements or alternatives.

homer911

I held my passport in the same hand as my Nexus 7 the other day and wondered why it started beeping - then realised it was the NFC tag in the passport..

I suppose its a quick way to check if your device supports NFC..

KAGY

I think one of the few uses of nfc tags that isn't as easily done with Trigger /Tasker is allowing friends to connect to my wifi (autocorrect wants to change that to wife :-) )
but I don't have that many techy friends so it'll be more hassle than its worth