NFC (Near Field Communication) is a technology of high-frequency wireless identification and communication over extremely short distances (not exceeding 3-10 cm). Any process is carried out at a frequency of 13.56 MHz. Information can only be exchanged between two closely spaced objects. Identification and data reading are performed automatically, for their implementation it is enough that both devices are in the communication coverage area.
NFC devices can exchange information, read it from RFID tags, and most importantly, they can be used as a card emulator. The latter option allows you to use all kinds of NFC-enabled devices as bank contactless cards. Also, a smartphone, tablet can serve as a ticket (travel pass, to the theater).
In addition, the presented technology helps to identify a person, which makes it possible to use a smartphone instead of a pass. Moreover, this is already being done in many Russian organizations, that is, NFC in ACS (this is an access control and management system) is not at all uncommon. Reason: This solution has a number of advantages.
NFC in ACS: features and benefits
Any NFC device can be used in the ACS as:
- Identifier. That is, it is allowed to use the phone that each employee has as an access card;
- NFC reader for ACS - this means that with the help of some kind of smartphone it is possible to control access.
What gives the use of an NFC device in an ACS:
- the ability to create effective security systems in production, in the office, etc.;
- opportunity to create mobile systems control. For example, for admission to corporate transport, control of employees working remotely (builders, geologists, others);
- the ability to create a mobile checkpoint, for example, access control by NFC devices is conveniently performed at any remote facility (warehouse, construction site), when employees enter the organization using corporate, personal transport;
- the ability to control access to specific premises;
- cost savings - NFC work pass will save money on buying access cards, as there will be no need to purchase or personalize them. An NFC reader for ACS also provides an opportunity to save money, especially if several terminals are required.
A phone with NFC as an access card can be used simultaneously in several control systems. For example, for access to the territory of different organizations or remote branches, objects.
In addition, using NFC technology in ACS is simply convenient. For example, when there is a planned, unscheduled change of passwords, the presence of an employee along with his smartphone is an optional procedure. This is especially important when an emergency procedure or access blocking is in progress.
For an NFC employee, the badge emulator is convenient in that it can serve as a duplicate of a magnetic badge. This means that in case of losing the card, there will be no problems with control. In addition, such a solution is practical, the reason is that a smartphone is always at hand, it is more convenient to get it, you do not need to look for it, unlike cards, which employees, after the end of the working day, are often neglected.
NFC access control: management and identification
The attractiveness of NFC is that with the use of this technology, the creation of an access control system becomes a quick procedure that does not require additional labor resources. All you need to have:
- Control computer;
- Reading terminal designed to read information from identifiers, which can always be a smartphone, tablet;
- Identifiers. Their role can be played by both familiar cards and personalized NFC devices of employees.
To integrate an NFC pass into your phone, just install on it special application and personalize. After that, the employee will have the right to freely access workplace. If necessary, NFC tag emulation can be performed any number of times.
NFC reader for access control
Any phone of a responsible employee that supports the presented type of communication will be able to read data from the identifier after being installed on it special program, that is, no special controllers are needed.
Also, during the control, the reader must be connected to the Internet, this will enable him to transfer information to command computer, which verifies the authenticity of the information received from the employee's phone.5 Voted: 1 )
Everyone is used to the fact that a smartphone is not the most suitable photographic equipment for shooting something “quickly”. While you turn on the display, while you unlock the screen, you will find the "Camera" icon and click on it - there will be nothing to photograph. In fact, in almost all modern smartphones, the camera can be turned on instantly - with two presses of the volume down key (Huawei / Honor, LG), the Home key (Samsung) or two turns of the wrist (Motorola, Google Nexus). In some smartphones of other brands, the camera can be activated by double pressing the volume up key or by a separate “special key” (for example, the Boom key in Alcatel Idol 4/4S).
Don't Forget the Tricks quick start cameras (source: androidcentral.com)
Neither the password on the lock screen, nor the number of background tasks will prevent you from turning on the camera directly from standby mode as quickly as possible. Outlandish key combinations or gestures will take some getting used to, but it's worth it not to fall into confusion every time you need the camera "here and now."
Sign in to apps with your fingerprint
Unlocking with a fingerprint scanner is a useful feature, although not everyone needs it. Because for many people there is no need to hide information in a mobile phone under a password, and attackers will find a way to reset / reflash a smartphone after theft.
With the help of a fingerprint scanner, you can enter applications without a password and pay for purchases on the Internet
But even in this case, the fingerprint scanner comes in handy - not in order to put a password on everything in a row, but in order not to enter a password where it is impossible without it. For example, it is much nicer and faster to touch the fingerprint scanner than to type numbers and letters when entering a bank application or when paying for a game / program / music / video from your phone. However, fans of "hide, be shy and hide" information on a mobile phone can put a request "show fingers" for every sneeze in Android - Huawei and ZTE branded shells in new models, for example, provide such an opportunity.
Feel free to ask the smartphone - he will understand
But the programmers of Google / Yandex and other corporations-soft writers eat their bread with butter and caviar for good reason, therefore voice search becomes more and more intelligent. And this means that in an unfamiliar city, you may well ask your mobile phone for “the nearest Sberbank ATM” or “Pyaterochka supermarket nearby” and get what you are looking for without entering the Google search box.
Google will always help. Or at least try
Hints Google Now so far less impressive and associated only with weather information stuck to the notification bar, but Google remembers your GPS movements, tastes and preferences according to search queries and visited sites, information in the contact list, after which Now becomes smarter over time, automatically reminds you of the birthdays of loved ones, the results of matches of your favorite teams, traffic jams on your way to work and changes in the weather in the morning. This is far from ideal in its ingenuity, but already now it is a useful system in many respects. artificial intelligence- why not use it, since it's free and not for the needs of special services?
There is an infrared port - there is a remote control
In the past, infrared could be used to share ringtones, funny videos, and pictures. Those great times are in the past, but the infrared port is still installed in new models. In budgetary Xiaomi Redmi Note 3/Redmi 4, LeEco, mid-range models like Honor 8, ASUS ZenFone 3, Meizu Pro 6, and even in flagships, Huawei Mate 9, HTC One M9 and samsung galaxy S6 for example.
For what? For driving household appliances- TVs, VCRs (and what else, to hell, tape recorders in 2017?), air conditioners, microwave ovens, something else very smart. Not a vital function, but turn down the volume when the doorbell rings, and your TV is yelling at the whole apartment, and the remote control is lost no one knows where, it will always come in handy.
Controlling appliances from a smartphone is not always necessary, but very often useful
As a rule, applications bundled with smartphones are designed to control equipment of a brand similar to a smartphone - Xiaomi, LeEco or Samsung, for example. But nothing stops you from going to Google Play and by the words "IR Remote" or "IrDA" find the right one for your household appliances alternative. For gourmets, there are even applications that organize the transfer and reception of files via infrared - useful to those who have not yet died Siemens CX65 or Sony Ericsson K500i, but the cable to connect to the PC is already irretrievably lost.
File transfer via Wi-Fi
By the way, about the exchange of files between mobile phones - Bluetooth, which we all used to use for such needs, is also a rather poor and archaic option for exchanging videos and applications of the current size. It is much more reasonable to use Wi-Fi for this, which is about 5 times faster than Bluetooth of the same degree of relevance.
The problem is that there is no single standard for sending and receiving files using Wi-Fi for Android - Google either campaigns to put files in the "Disk" cloud storage, or advocates a hybrid version of "Android Beam" data transfer - when smartphones need lean against each other, they will establish an NFC connection, and then continue to transfer files using Bluetooth.
Instead of slow Bluetooth, you can transfer files between smartphones using Wi-Fi
Therefore, for our undertaking, auxiliary means will be needed. For example, known to every enthusiast ES Explorer. One smartphone, two smartphones, each with installed application. Both actors select the “sender” item, one selects “receive”, the second “send”, the choice of files - and transfer at a speed of 30-50 Mbps (depending on smartphones). All! As a last resort, download to yourself and transfer to a friend via Bluetooth this same ES Explorer from the official site - 10 MB "weather won't do it", especially since placing a file of several hundred MB in the cloud instead of directly transferring it to a smartphone is a much more stupid idea, especially after the death of unlimited mobile tariffs in Russia.
We connect flash drives and hard drives to a smartphone / smartphone to a TV
“I'm away from my computer right now, I can't transfer the file to you” is a good excuse if you want to take a break, but in other cases, you should keep in mind such a smartphone feature as USB OTG (On-The-Go). This is when the connector, which, as we are accustomed to, is only suitable for recharging the phone or connecting it to a computer, turns out to be able to work with flash drives, hard drives, card readers, keyboards and mice, game controllers and even printers! Through an adapter to a full-size USB connector, of course.
No drivers or other dances with tambourines are required - you plug it in and everything works. Thus, for example, you can immediately send photos from the camera to your relatives/employer “in the field”, download a pack of films from the HDD to your smartphone to watch them on a long journey, or vice versa, urgently free up a memory card on your mobile phone so that there is enough space for many hours of video recording .
Almost all new smartphones support connection via USB OTG, but we won’t speak “for all Odessa”, so make sure that your model is able to master this type of connection by searching for the words “OTG_smartphone_name”, or just buy a cable for 50-300 rubles and experiment !
USB OTG allows you to connect devices to your smartphone like a computer
When connecting smartphones to a TV, things are more complicated. In ancient times, mobile phones were equipped with a separate micro-HDMI output, which worked in a predictable way, and it was relatively easy to get a cable to it. Then, when smartphones began to get rid of "extra" connectors, the MHL standard replaced it. Connect one side of the cable to micro-USB / USB-C, and the other to HDMI - the smartphone displays the image on the TV and even recharges (if the connector on the TV also complies with the MHL standard. Does not comply - it does not recharge). For some time it was popular among smartphone manufacturers - the Sony Xperia guard stands out in the list of smartphones with support for this standard.
But then MHL was "blown away" due to licensing proceedings and was replaced by SlimPort - the same egg principles for connecting devices to TV, only free from patent royalties. Found in most new LG, BlackBerry smartphones, some HTC and ASUS models.
In most cases, Google & Company recommends using wireless transmission screen data using Miracast. Connect the receiver to the TV, select "screen broadcast" (or something similar) in the smartphone - and with a delay of a second or two, the image begins to arrive on big screen. What-no, but "vidak".
Guest mode - when you can not refuse to "let you use" your smartphone
Supporters radical methods they won’t understand the problem solving, but there are situations in life when you need to give your smartphone to your spouse / child for calls, games or something else, but throwing out a list of applications, photos, correspondence in instant messengers or bank accounts in the client software is not very - something you want. A fingerprint request saves you from prying eyes, but in most smartphones you cannot additionally “close” painful information with a fingerprint. Once the smartphone was unlocked - and it is at the complete disposal of your child / soulmate / Petya, who came to visit your child.
Smartphones have long supported separate Accounts for the owner and strangers
But there is also a compromise option - to create a second smartphone user, just for cases when "I just need to call / play." We examined in detail the scheme of these (and many other) "sanctions" for curious mobile phone users in the corresponding article, so today we will not stop at the instructions. Just know - in any modern mobile phone, you can build an "empty" part of the system from which it will not be possible to access your personal data.
NFC - pass, bank card and travel card replenishment from a mobile phone
In addition to all kinds of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 4G modules, many modern smartphones support NFC technology. It is with her help that the owners new iPhones and Samsung pay for goods in stores with a smartphone instead of a bank card. Technically, such tricks can be implemented in a huge army of NFC-enabled smartphones, but only Apple and Samsung have taken care of the bureaucracy and agreements with banks, so in all other devices the technology will be “marinated” for payment until better times.
And here and now, NFC can be used as a short-range connection for short-range communication sessions. For residents of Moscow, a smartphone with NFC can already now replace a travel card (it is applied to the turnstile instead of transport cards), it can work as a terminal for reading the validity period and the number of remaining trips (you need an application, NFC enabled and once attach the card to the rear panel of the smartphone).
I have a Beeline card - a regular debit MasterCard, which can be obtained free of charge at any Beeline salon. There is no annual subscription fee for servicing my card. The card works like a regular MC all over the world, only when making purchases, 1.5% of the amount spent is returned to the account in the form of bonuses. Accumulated bonuses can be used when paying for services mobile communications, my wired internet, various products in partner stores.
Card emulation on a smartphone
In fact, HCE technology makes it possible to emulate contactless smart cards in the phone. In our case, the virtual card is additional function physical carrier - plastic card "Beeline". The owner of such a card, who is also the owner of an Android KitKat smartphone equipped with an NFC module, installs the Beeline card mobile application on it. When entering the mobile application, to activate the contactless payment function, it is enough to enter the EAN card and your password. The application checks for the presence/availability of HCE on the device, and if everything is in order, the user is prompted to enable the functionality.
If the user confirms his consent to connect the service by responding to the received SMS by entering a one-time password, then the issue is made virtual card– the data necessary for making NFC payments is loaded into the mobile application from the processing center. Actually, that's all - the phone has become a contactless payment tool.
HCE(Host-based Card Emulation) is a technology that makes it possible to write software that does not require a dedicated cryptoprocessor to execute in order to provide a communication session with a payment terminal. The application is running on the main processor mobile device, surrounded by the operating system of the phone.
What you need to use the service in Russia
In order to use the contactless payment service, you need to get a prepaid Beeline card for free at any Beeline office. Next, download the Beeline card mobile application on Google Play and activate the contactless payment function. Hardware and software limitations: operating android system, version not lower than 4.4, the presence of an NFC module in the phone.
What other features are there?
For example, if a user has not one, but several phones on Android 4.4, then the contactless payment service linked to his main card can be installed on all devices of the owner of this card. This is convenient, for example, for using the service by a family. At the same time, only one virtual card can exist on one phone.
When paying, when the phone is brought to the terminal, the screen displays the amount of the purchase and information about the success of the payment.
Payment is only made when the screen is unlocked, so it is important that the phone is password protected. In this case, the application itself may be closed. When the application is removed from the phone, the virtual card is blocked. When the application is restored, the card is re-emulated, so you will have to go through the process of setting up contactless payment from scratch. You will also need to reactivate the service if you disable the contactless payment service in the application. However, it is not necessary to delete the application or disable the service at all - you can use the "Suspend contactless payment" function to temporarily block it.
What is the profit?
So, what does the contactless payment service with a mobile phone give us? You can forget your wallet at home, leave your passport in the apartment, or even driver's license, but with almost 100% probability the smartphone will be with you. And if an application for contactless payment is installed on this phone, then you are always with the “bubble”.
An NFC transaction is an instant payment. Even in order to pay with a plastic card, you first need to remove it from your wallet, and before that - your wallet from your pocket or bag. When paying in cash, the moment of recalculation, transfer of money, receipt and verification of change, etc. is added. Transactions up to 1000 rubles, made using NFC and HCE, do not even require entering a PIN code, and the settlement, without any exaggeration, takes place in one moment and with one touch.
After the transaction is completed, an SMS message is sent to the phone about the completed transaction and the account balance, i.e. you are always aware of the status of your e-wallet.
By the way, an interesting detail is that the Beeline card application implements a single PIN technology for several cards, in this case, for the main Beeline card and the card emulated by the mobile application. That is, when paying with a plastic card, and using the contactless payment service, you enter the same password.
The service is free and there are no fees for NFC transactions.
Where can you pay?
Of course, the development of the infrastructure for accepting contactless payments depends on the specific region, but today about 5% of payment terminals are already equipped with the NFC function. On the scale of the whole of Russia, according to expert estimates, this is about 30 thousand devices. POS terminal market leaders VenFone and Ingenico have been equipping their devices with NFC support as a basic standard feature for years.
When paying, you should be guided by the presence of an icon on the POS-terminal, indicating that the device is equipped with contactless functionality.
If we talk about specific points, then these are chains, large stores, fast foods, gas stations. McDonald's, Starbucks, Subway, Auchan hypermarkets, O'KEY, Magnit, Aeroexpress, large chains mobile retail, global cosmetics and fragrance stores, fashionable leisure venues.
Safety
The most obvious bottleneck of HCE technology today is safety. The data necessary and sufficient for making NFC payments is stored directly in the smartphone's memory. However, for mobile application Beeline cards use a set of measures that minimize the likelihood of hacking. We did an internal competition for hacking the system, with a very good reward, code analysis.
Let's look at some aspects information security HCE technologies implemented for the Beeline card mobile application.
Operations on a locked phone are not possible. In this sense, the HCE solution is better protected than a conventional plastic card with a contactless interface - in order to complete a payment transaction, an attacker must unlock the phone. When regular card- just get the card itself. When using the mobile application of the Beeline card, for example, the scenario is impossible when in the subway in a dense stream of people money is imperceptibly debited from a virtual card by putting a reader on the pocket.
The product is protected from hacking and cloning both at the level of the application itself and at the level of processing. All data is encrypted, the application itself monitors hacking attempts and, if such an attempt is detected, cleans up all critical data. At the same time, the application periodically reports its state to processing, during all operations the host checks the expected state and compares it with the actually received one. If there is a mismatch, which may be caused by an attempt to clone, the card is blocked. In addition, the processing center has special issuer fraud monitoring rules that control the number of spinless transactions and block the card when suspicious activity is detected.
Operations in excess of 1000 rubles are protected online by a pin code, which is entered into the terminal's pinpad. Interception of the pin code through hacking the application is impossible - simply because the pin code is never entered on the phone.
When you lose your phone, the procedure is practically no different from the standard measures performed when you lose the usual bank card: calling the contact center, blocking the Beeline card by EAN, receiving a new card in the communication salon. On new map all cash balances, bonuses, and so on will be transferred. In this case, of course, the card number will change, and the attacker will have a phone in his hands, in which the old card will be emulated, operations on which can no longer be performed, since it is blocked.
By the way, you should pay attention to one more nuance related to the security of NFC technology in general. There is an idea that the data transfer session itself from a smartphone to a POS terminal is vulnerable. In fact, each transaction is protected by a unique cryptogram, without which authorization is impossible. From the data that is transmitted over the air, it is almost impossible to extract any information that would help attackers steal funds from the account by signing other transactions.
Will this service work on the iOS platform?
Apple took the phone-based path and uses the built-in Secure Element, where no one except Apple can upload card keys. Therefore, the only realistic option at present is integration with new technology Visa Token Service (generation of temporary keys for payment), on the basis of which Apple Pay, in fact, works.
Forecasts
It can be predicted that the NFC payment market in Russia is moving from the stage of formation to the phase of active growth. The number of phones supporting NFC technology is growing, there are integration projects implemented jointly by vendors, payment systems and retailers.
In the first half of 2014, 1.2 million smartphones supporting NFC technology were sold in Russia. This is 21% more than in the same period last year. NFC smartphones accounted for 14% of all smartphone sales in the country. It is clear that rapid growth can only be due to the convenience of using contactless technologies, and a powerful driver can give mass character to the service. Such, for example, as contactless fare payment in public transport, primarily in the subway.
If we talk about the capacity of the NFC-payments market in Russia, then experts give a figure of about 15 billion rubles (J'son & Partners estimate).
NXP Semiconductors and HID Global announced their joint development - the basic Mobile Access solution for mobile NFC phones. NFC technology enables the exchange of information between devices on short distances using existing contactless data transmission standards.
HID Global and NXP have helped create today's market for physical access based on maps and today together transfer these solutions to mobile phones as NFC becomes standard technology.
Contactless cards for employee access to company buildings and parking areas can now be integrated into an NFC phone that stores a digital ID. Built in mobile phone NXP security element contains credentials that can be read from it systems and devices for access control. Increasingly used for access control, NFC smartphones will provide users and businesses with a familiar high level security in combination with the device.
The jointly developed solution also brings the benefits of NXP and HID Global's swipe technologies to the physical access control infrastructure. The solution supports existing HID Global readers as well as devices based on the company's iCLASS SIO-Enabled () platform, which encourages the migration of access control technologies beyond traditional cards and readers, and allows you to implement mobile access using a digital ID. HID iCLASS SE readers will be based on the new NXP CLRC663 ICs and will fully support ISO 14443 compliant 13.56 MHz smart cards, including MIFARE DESFIRE EV1.
To ensure interoperability, the new solution is backward compatible with new HID Global iCLASS readers and is also compatible with HID Global's Trusted Identity Platform (TIP) ecosystem. To provide support for NFC mobile phones without physically replacing existing readers, users of HID products can upgrade the software version of some iCLASS devices. NXP technology allows you to manage multiple applications such as payment acceptance, e-government, access control and ticketing with a single microcontroller that guarantees secure identity recognition without compromising performance, security or design performance.
Mobile Access Solution on NXP PN65 NFC Family Low Power ICs, which provide data storage resistant to unauthorized access. PN65 ICs contain NFC radio controller NXP PN544 and built-in safety element (Element, eSE). eSE features NXP SmartMX technology, used to protect hundreds of millions of bank cards; electronic passports and cards for electronic identification (eID), tickets for transport and other cards and identity cards around the world. NXP ICs Will Support HID Global's Secure Identity Object (SIO) Technology for Identity Configuration, Storage, and Management life cycle, as well as the HID Trusted Identity platform platform(TIP) to manage end devices and ensure their security. HID SIO introduces a new, based on standards, a flexible structure of identification data, 
which, regardless of the technologies used, makes it possible to implement the capabilities of smart cards in a wide range of portable platforms, including NFC phones.
On September 9, Apple announced iPhone smartphones 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, one of the features of which was the NFC chip and the Apple Pay technology based on it. In the presentation, the main emphasis was placed on the possibility of contactless payment for purchases using a smartphone, but in fact, the possibilities of NFC do not end there and have long been successfully used in Android smartphones to perform a variety of tasks. different tasks, ranging from paying for a trip to the subway and ending with the automation of a smartphone.
Instead of an introduction
NFC stands for Near Field Communication or "near contactless communication" if in Russian. At its core, this is a small chip that can be embedded in a smartphone in order to transfer data over very short distances at a very meager speed. NFC is very close to RFID, which has long been used to tag products in supermarkets, but is based on its more recent ISO/IEC 14443 standard (smart cards) and is designed to be used in portable electronics (read: smartphones) and perform secure transactions (read: payment for purchases).
As with the ISO/IEC 14443 standard, the NFC range is only 5-10 cm, but the difference is that the NFC chip is able to perform the function of a tag and a reader at the same time. In other words, equipped NFC smartphone can be either a smart card (metro card, for example), which is enough to bring to the reader to pay, and the reader itself, which can be used, for example, to transfer funds between smartphone cards and turn real cards with ISO / IEC support 14443 to virtual.
But this is only "one of" and the most obvious use of NFC. Due to the fact that the NFC chip is capable of transmitting data in both directions and does not require device authentication, it can be used as a simple and more convenient replacement for Bluetooth. With the help of NFC, for example, you can share links, passwords, contact and other data between smartphones by simply bringing them to each other.
Introduced in Android 4.0, Beam technology further pushes the boundaries of NFC, allowing you to quickly transfer entire files and folders between devices, which is achieved by pre-authenticating Bluetooth devices via NFC and then establishing a Bluetooth connection and sending files. As in the previous case, all that is required for the transfer is simply to bring the phones to each other. IN Samsung firmware this function is called S-Beam and allows you to use not only the blue tooth, but also Wi-Fi as a “transport channel” (one of the smartphones turns into an access point).
Another possibility is the use of passive NFC tags. These tags, in the form of small stickers, can be purchased for half a dollar apiece and reprogrammed using a smartphone. Each of them can hold 137 bytes of information (in the case of the most common and cheapest Mifire Ultralight C tag), which, again, can be read simply by bringing a smartphone. You can write the password from your home Wi-Fi into the tag and stick it on the router. Or a code word that the smartphone will respond to. You can organize the automatic launch of the navigator when you install a smartphone in the holder in the car or turn on silent and energy-saving modes when the phone is on the bedside table. A small shopping list of 137 bytes will also fit perfectly.
In this article, we will talk about all the possible applications of NFC in practice, but since in our country payment for purchases with its help has been implemented almost nowhere, we will mainly talk about tag-based automation.
Smartphone support
The first phone with integrated NFC support was the Nokia 6131, released back in 2006. Then the built-in NFC chip was just a toy to demonstrate the capabilities of the technology created two years ago. The smartphone was equipped with software for reading NFC tags, but due to their then high cost and almost zero popularity of the technology, no serious use this feature no smartphone required.
After some lull, NFC was popularized by Google, which released in 2010 Samsung smartphone Nexus S and google app Wallet, which allowed you to pay with virtual credit cards using NFC. The following year, Google became a leading member of the NFC Forum and introduced Android 4.0 and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone based on it, which now boasted the same Beam feature. Later came the Nexus 4, and finally other manufacturers started to catch up.
Today, almost all manufactured smartphones are equipped with NFC. The corresponding module is even in Mediatek's ultra-budget chips, so most of the new Chinese smartphones worth 5,000 rubles are also equipped with them. In any case, the presence of the NFC chip is easy to check by the presence of the item " Wireless network-> NFC" in settings.
Playing with tags
Where to get tags? Like I said, the easiest option is to just order them from China (dx.com, tinydeal.com, aliexpress.com). The cheapest tags in the face of Mifire Ultralight C with 137 bytes of memory will cost about five dollars for ten pieces. You can also get branded tags from Sony (SmartTags), but apart from appearance and the price, which will be three to five times higher, they are no different. Another option is Samsung's TecTile tags, with an even higher price tag, but with more memory (716 bytes). But here you need to be careful, the first version of the tags is only compatible with the NXP NFC controller, so they will not work with most smartphones.
As a tag, it is quite possible to use tokens and subway cards for multiple trips. Often, part of the memory in them remains free for writing, so any information can be placed there. But even if it's not, the tag can still be used as an action trigger by simply setting the smartphone's response to the tag's unique ID.
Without additional software, mobile operating systems have only limited support for "communicating" with tags. The same Android does not offer any means to work with them at all. All you can do is just bring the tag to your smartphone so that the latter can read it. Depending on the type of data recorded in the tag, a smartphone can display this data on the screen (text type or not supported), open a web page (URI type), launch an application ( special type android.com:pkg, which is only supported on Android), open the dialer with specified number(URI type "tel://") and do some other things.
There are no tools for changing the tags themselves or the behavior of the smartphone in response to their detection in Android, so we will have to acquire additional software. The three applications we will be using are:
- NFC TagInfo is a tag reader that allows you to get the most full information about the tag and the data written to it;
- NFC TagWriter - a proprietary application from the leading tag manufacturer NXP Semiconductors;
- Trigger - allows you to independently define a reaction to a tag with the ability to transfer control to Tasker.
NFC TagInfo
To begin with, let's figure out what kind of tags we got. The Chinese usually do not report any details on this matter, and I generally keep quiet about metro maps. We launch NFC TagInfo and bring the smartphone to the tag. Next, tap on the Tag Information item and look (screenshot "Reading the NFC tag"), what we have:
- UID - unique tag identifier;
- RF Technology is the standard supported by the tag. In this case, this is ISO / IEC 14443 Type A, that is, a regular RFID tag with support for the first version of the data exchange protocol (Type A);
- Tag Type - the type (or, better, "model") of the tag. In this case, NTAG203 is Mifare Ultralight C, the cheapest on this moment tag. The letter C means data encryption support. There is also Topaz 512, which holds 450 bytes of information, and Mifare Classic 1K (716 bytes), used in TecTile tags and often in metro maps;
- Manufacturer - the manufacturer of the tag. NXP Semiconductors - 90% of all NFC tags are made by them (Mifare family).
Now we go back and go to the NDEF information menu. NDEF is one of the NFC standards that describes the format for storing information in tag memory and transmitting it to the reader. A tag can contain several NDEF messages, each with its own identifier and type, which the smartphone can use to determine how to interpret the data it contains. The type is specified in the format URI, MIME or domain:service if it is a type specific to the reader (for example, the same android.com:pkg).
In the NDEF information menu, we are primarily interested in the lines Maximum message size (useful tag size), Is tag writable (write support) and Can tag be write-protected (write protection support). The last option allows you to block the writing of the tag for all devices except ours. In addition, a tag can be locked forever, so that it can never be written to again. In this case, no will be specified in the penultimate option.
What's inside the tag?
From a technical point of view, an NFC tag is a microcomputer like those found inside SIM cards and bank cards. It has its own processor, RAM and permanent memory, but there is no traditional power source. It receives electric current through electromagnetic induction, which occurs between the antennas of the reader and the tag, just as it happens in wireless chargers and passive radios. Due to the ultra-low level of energy consumption, the power of such a "transformer" is quite enough for the normal functioning of the microcomputer.
The antenna occupies about 99% of the area of the label and transmits data at a frequency of 13.56 MHz at a rate of 106, 212, or 424 kbps. The NFC standards define several data transfer protocols, including several implementations of the data exchange protocol (they are denoted by the letters A, B, and so on), which can be supplemented by the manufacturer of the tag itself. For example, Mifare family tags implement a number of extensions over the standard protocol, which can catch incompatibilities between applications and the tag (but this is rare).
Data security is ensured in several ways:
- Short range. Ten centimeters is a very private area.
- Anti-cloning with a unique serial number.
- Possibility of overwrite protection and password protection of data.
- Optional data encryption in memory and in transit.
The leading manufacturer of NFC tags is NXP Semiconductors. They produce tags of the Mifare family, which have become so popular that not only other tag manufacturers, but also manufacturers of NFC chips for smartphones (at the level of tag emulation) provide compatibility with them. The family includes several different models, ranging from the simplest Mifare Ultralight C to Mifare DESFire EV1, which have a built-in file system with support for cryptography and flexibly customizable access rights.
Go to the NDEF message menu. If the tag contains any data, all of it will be displayed here broken down into posts. The remaining NFC TagInfo options allow you to view information about the tag's memory: actual size, dump in HEX and ASCII formats, access rights to memory pages, and so on. I recommend returning to these options after writing to the data tag.
Writing data
We will use NFC TagWriter to write data. Using the application is quite simple. We start, tap on the Create, write and store item, select New, then select the type of data to be written. The most useful types are contact, plain text, phone number, Bluetooth connection data, URI, and application. There is even a web browser bookmark and an email message in the list, but what they are for is not entirely clear.
Next, fill in the required fields (for example, the website address in the case of a URI), click Next and get to the options screen (screenshot "NFC TagWriter: message options"). Here you can specify the application that will be launched after reading the label (Add launch application) and set protection to be overwritten by a third-party device (Apply Soft Protection). The application will also take care of informing us about the tag models that can accommodate this data (in this case, everything is OK, NTAG203 is on the list).
Press Next again and bring the smartphone to the tag. Voila, our data is in it. Now they can be read by any smartphone with NFC support. But what does it ultimately give?
Use cases
In fact, there are a lot of scenarios for using tags. For example, I use tags to store passwords and home automation, someone to automatically unlock a smartphone and auto start navigator in the car. Tags can be glued on a table, on a laptop, on a key chain, inside a book, on a business card, or sewn under clothes. Therefore, the range of their application is huge, and in the end everything depends only on your imagination.
home automation
The simplest and most obvious way to use tags is to simply stick them around the house in order to have some kind of automation system. There are many various options. Here are the most interesting and useful ones.
- Home Wi-Fi password. We glue the tag on the router and write the password into it using the InstaWifi application. It will be useful not only for those who often receive guests, but also for those who like to experiment with firmware.
- Start auto-sync or PC communication application. The tag can be glued to a laptop or system unit and registered in it to launch an application for data synchronization (AirDroid, WiFi ADB, and others).
- Enable hotspot. Again, we glue the tag on the laptop, then install the Trigger application. We add a new task in it, select NFC as a trigger, skip the selection of restrictions, select “Wireless and local networks-> Wifi zone", skip the next screen (adding a switch) and on the last screen bring it to the NFC tag.
- Activate night flight mode. Glue the label somewhere closer to the bed. We start Trigger, a new task -> trigger: NFC -> action: "Experimental -> Airplane Mode". Alternatively, instead of turning on airplane mode, you can set data and Wi-Fi to turn off by adding the appropriate actions to the task.
Automotive Automation
NFC tags will be very useful for those who use their smartphone as a car navigator. It is enough to stick the tag on the smartphone holder and write down the instructions for launching the navigator into it - and voila. Everything has become much easier. However, I would recommend taking a slightly different route and complicating the setup by adding automatic turning on Bluetooth(for headset), GPS and turn off Wi-Fi.
To do this, we again need a Trigger. We start, add a task, select NFC as a trigger. Add action "Bluetooth -> Bluetooth On/Off -> Enable". Add one more action: "Wireless & Local Networks -> GPS On/Off -> Enable". And one more thing: "Wireless and local networks -> WiFi On / Off -> Turn off." Finally, add the action "App and shortcuts -> Open app -> select app". We skip the screen for adding switches, on the next screen we bring the smartphone to the tag.
Now, after installing the smartphone in the holder, we will get a smartphone fully configured for use in the car.
Smartphone unlock
Motorola has a rather interesting smartphone accessory called the Motorola Skip. This is a clothing clip for quickly unlocking your smartphone without having to enter a PIN code or graphic key. The accessory is quite useful in some cases, but it only works with smartphones from the same company. Fortunately, a similar contraption can be assembled on the knee.
I won’t tell you how to make the clip itself - here everyone is free to show their imagination, you can stick an NFC tag on your hand - but instead I’ll tell you how to set up a smartphone to unlock when you touch it. There are several ways, but the simplest and most effective is the Xposed NFC LockScreenOff Enabler module. The module, like Xposed itself, requires root, but in addition to effectively solving the problem, it includes a super function - NFC activation when the screen is off.
The fact is that, for security reasons, Android prohibits the use of NFC until the screen is unlocked (not just turned on, but unlocked), which negates many effective methods of using it. NFC LockScreenOff Enabler solves this problem.
Business card
NFC tags can be used in combination with business cards. There are several companies on the market that produce them, but their price tags are such that it is easier to stick tags on ordinary business cards yourself, and there will still be a lot of money left in your pocket. You can write any information in the tag, including contact information (TagWriter supports this format), website address, or even the geographic coordinates of your office (the smartphone will automatically open maps to show the position). And most importantly, it is not at all necessary to give a business card to a person, it is enough for him to scan it.
Turning on the computer
This is a kind of development of the idea of tags on a system unit and a laptop. The idea is to create a setting that will allow you to turn on the computer using an NFC tag, regardless of where the tag itself is located. For example, you can stick it in the hallway, so you can turn on the car even before you take off your shoes. The method is based on the WoL function, which allows you to turn on the computer by sending packets to the Ethernet port, and the Android application Wol Wake on Lan Wang that does it over the internet.
How to setup? First, open the router control panel and configure port forwarding 7 and 9 (WoL ports) to our home machine. It is very important to specify the MAC address instead of IP, as the latter may be given to another device. Next, we go to noip.com, register and get a free domain, which we will use to reach the router from the outside. If you have a static IP, you can skip this step.
Next, install Wol Wake on Lan Wan on the smartphone, press the Add New button and drive in an arbitrary name, the MAC address of the computer and the previously received domain in the window that opens, press Save. Just in case, check the setting. Next, install Tasker, go to the Tasks tab (tasks), create a new task, select Plugin -> Wol Wake on Lan Wan as an action and select the previously created WoL profile. We save.
Now we need to bind this task to NFC. To do this, launch Trigger, add a task, select NFC as a trigger, and “Scheduler -> Scheduler Task” as an action (the developers translated Tasker as “Scheduler”), then select the task created in the previous step in Tasker, skip creating switches and at the last stage of the setup, we bring the smartphone to the NFC tag.
This is all. If everything is configured correctly, then when the tag is detected, Android will give control to Trigger, which, in turn, will launch a Tasker task that activates the profile we need in the Wol Wake on Lan Wan application, it will send a WoL packet to the router, which will redirect it to computer MAC address, LAN card which... Oh well. In general, everything just should work :).
conclusions
NFC technology has a lot of applications, and I'm sure that in five years NFC tags and payment terminals will be everywhere, from billboards to supermarkets. And I hope that at least this time Russia will not lag behind the whole world for fifty years.
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