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NFC Explained In 2 Minutes !!

posted Jul 31, 2017, 11:47 AM by Rohit Bhaskar   [ updated Jul 10, 2018, 11:51 AM by Chirag Trasikar ]

Hi guys! I know its been a reeeeeally long time and I apologise for it, but as they say, ‘life is what happens to you when you’re busy doing other things‘. So, let’s get to the point without further ado 🙂

A huge majority of us have probably either used NFC (Near Field Communication) or have seen it in action (or have at least heard about it…hopefully. If you haven’t then you need to get out of your cave ASAP). If you’ve heard of Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, all these use NFC. NFC has been with us for quite a while now. To put it simply, NFC is just a wireless communication method…that’s it. No magic here, sorry 🙂

How it works is that a NFC chip operates as one part of a wireless link. Once it’s activated by another chip, small amounts of data between the two devices can be transferred when held a few centimeters from each other.

So what’s so special about it that all the big companies are trying to incorporate it? And anyway we already have WiFi and Bluetooth right? So what does NFC bring to the table? The answer to this is mainly 2 things:

1. Much lesser power required
2. Faster connectivity
It requires  lesser power since it can work as a passive device (without having a power source). This is since it’s based on RFID (Radio-frequency identification) tech, which uses electromagnetic induction.

Coming to faster connectivity. Due to the use of inductive coupling, and the absence of manual pairing, it takes less than one tenth of a second to establish a connection between two devices.
But as every other technology, it also has it’s drawbacks. NFC only has a range of around 10cm, that’s just a few inches!! Another drawback is that NFC is quite a bit slower than its competitiors like bluetooth, transmitting data at a maximum speed of just 424 kbit/s.

Looking toward the future, it’s possible that NFC chips could be used to replace every card in your wallet!

 But the potential for NFC stretches further than commerce. Passive NFC ‘tags’ are being built into posters and informational kiosks to transmit additional information similar to how scanning a QR code can trigger launching a web address, offering a discount coupon, or a map to download on your smartphone.
That’s all for this post!! And here’s a list of compatible devices, if you’re really interested in trying 🙂