While Near Field Communication is an intriguing innovation, it is important to understand its advantages and disadvantages of it before integrating this device into an individual’s life or into a business. For example you can pay directly from device (using the application like Google wallet) in the stores which accept NFC payment. And how does NFC works? NFC don’t require pairing or discovering like Bluetooth, resulting in fast data transfer while keeping the connection anonymous as no user data is collected. NFC work at very short distance usually around 4 cm which means you will have to almost touch the two devices to get it work. And transfer speed in NFC is somewhere around 100-400 Kilo bits/s whereas Bluetooth can go up to 100′s of meters with 2.1 Mb/s transfer rate.
NFC don’t requires you have addition application install in your device like you have to do while reading a QR code. All you need to do is turn on NFC by going into your device setting and it will automatically detect other NFC device or tags. NFC supported smartphones have special hardware chip built into it. Right now there are not as many smartphonesupporting NFC as there are Bluetooth supported device. But use of NFC technology is growing day by day and soon it will be in every phone. For example NFC tags are use in smart movie posters, in visiting cards, contact less payment.
If you are not sure you can check out this article , if you using android then use Do I Have NFC android app to find out. Other than sharing data, making mobile payments and simple home automation, there are many other cool way to use NFC technology. I have placed NFC tags near my bed, at my office and on my doors for automating tasks on my smartphones. Companies are now manufacturing equipment like NFC speaker, keyboard, and even light bulbs that could be control with NFC. NFC tags are passive in nature which means that don’t have their own power supply but they withdraw power from the nearby NFC device.
NFC device has special hardware built into it for encryption purposes to make the mobile payment secure. And the best seen is in nexus 10 which lacks this hardware and thus can’t be used as payment gateway with Google wallet. But this is not it, NFC does have few drawbacks like not all the device available in the market has built-in NFC support. In the coming years there will be many phones which have NFC support built-in them.
Since NFC tags are re-writable, hackers can change the information if placed in public. NFC is a promising technology but still it’s not as popular as expected mainly due to lack of publicity and knowledge from our end. Even though it will take time to carry it on bigger scale you can still use NFC tags at your home and office and make your life better. Examples of one-way NFC include a phone, credit card reader or commuter card terminal. Though NFC has many of the same capabilities as Bluetooth technology, NFC uses a lot less power to transmit data. This flexibility will only add to the speedy adoption of NFC payments technology.
