NFC a.k.a Near Field Communication is a technology use to share data between two NFC supported devices, preferable kept at the distance of 4 cm or less. If have too many boxes in your house or factory and you don’t want to open it to find what inside it. Then you can use NFC tags to store it index and place it on the box. For reading and writing to the NFC tags you can use the free app called Pack it up from Google play. Using app like Uber device unlock you can program passive NFC tag to open your smartphones lock.
If you don’t want to ask your friend to install an app then you can just write down your WiFi password on NFC tag and place it near your Router. NFC is not only limited to smartphones but has made long way to device like cash cards, printers and many computer accessories. But soon we will see NFC used to open the cars, set your preference like seat adjustment, play your favorite tracks and ask you to choose from one of your common routes.
Another cool application of NFC is start up your pc using NFC by waving your smartphone on your laptop both under the same network. This is done by sending data packets from smartphone to laptop using NFC over the LAN. Like I said before NFC doesn’t have to be limited to phone to phone data sharing or mobile payment. NFC loyalty cards can be used to track customer preference, offer him discounts.
With handful of software, couple of passive NFC tag, automation hardware like WeMo you can hack your room lights to work on voice command. This is best used in Bill Gates’s techno-utopian Xanadu 2.0 mansion where NFC is placed in their id cards so, when the visitors enter the mansion temperature and lighting conditions get adjusted according to demographic of visitors. By using micro controller like an Arduino, you can control almost any electrically operate machines like toaster, heater even your coffee maker using NFC radio shield. Use the comments section below and let us know how you use NFC in your daily life.
In reader/writer mode, an NFC device behaves as a reader for passive NFC tag, such as the contactless smart cards and RFID tags. In Peer-to-Peer mode, two NFC enabled devices can exchange information between each other. In Card-emulation mode, an NFC device behaves like a contactless smart card In this mode, the mobile phone does not generate its own RF field; the NFC reader creates this field instead. Both Android and Blackberry does that and can therefore be used to emulate contactless cards.
