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NFC Tags & Stickers 101You've got questions - we've got answers! NFC is a rather new technology so it only makes sense that most people don't know a whole lot about it. Read the below and watch our NFC Demo Videos to get a better understanding of NFC and how our AndyTags™ NFC Stickers work.
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What exactly is NFC?
- NFC stands for Near Field Communication. It was developed to allow communication between two devices or a device and a microchip that are in very close range (hence "near field") using very little power. With AndyTags NFC Stickers you will generally need to tap the back of your phone to the tag.
- You program tags with your phone using one of many NFC apps, most of which are FREE on Google Play. See our NFC Apps page for recommendations of the best apps to make the most out of your AndyTags NFC Stickers.
- The NFC Mifare Classic compatible chips only work with some phones. There are plenty of newer tags by NXP and other companies that work with all phones. Make sure to read about the tags you are looking at to make sure they will be compatible with your phone. See our special NFC Tags Compatibility Issues Page for more info about the older Mifare Classic Tags by NXP! If you have any concerns about compatibility with your specific phone, contact the phone manufacturer before ordering or just make sure to do your research online to make sure the tags are compatible with your phone.
- The NTAG203 Tags will work with all NFC enabled devices including the Nexus 4 & Galaxy S4. However, they have only 137 bytes of usable memory. This is enough for most NFC launchers that change settings or launch events on a phone and for basic URL's or simple text as they hold about 130 characters. But for vCards they can only hold a few pieces of information. For a complete vCard that has all information and applications needing larger amounts of memory the Topaz 512 Tags are a better choice.
- In general, NFC signals should be able to penetrate a case so long as the back center of the phone (where the NFC technology is built into the phone's battery) is tapped to the sticker. If you have a super crazy 1 inch thick case or a case with a metal kickstand then it could cause an issue and you might want to test a single tag before placing a large order. Any case that includes metal backing may interfere with the NFC signal as metal is known to do. It is advised that you not cover your phones back with metal if you want to make use of the NFC technology.
- For NFC to work and be active, your phone must be "awake". Therefore, you need to wake your phone (usually by pressing the power button) and make sure the screen is on before tapping your phone to a NFC tag. Also make sure you tap the part of your phone that contains the NFC radio (often the battery) to the tag.
- In many phones with NFC technology and replaceable batteries (such as the Samsung Galaxy S3), the NFC phone technology is built into the battery itself. Not all replacement or extended batteries have NFC built in. If you plan to make use of NFC, you must make sure the battery you use has NFC technology built into it. Also note that some third party NFC batteries may not have as strong of an NFC antenna as the stock battery which can influence how quickly & easily the phone reads the tag.
- Our tags ship blank and unformatted. Generally, an app will format the tag if necessary and then write the information to it. Occasionally, for some reason a particular app will fail to do this correctly. When that happens, the simple solution is to install another NFC app on your phone and use that app to "reset" or "format" or "write to" the tag. Once this other app has done this, you should then be able to write to the tag with your original NFC app or any other app with no problem. Visit our Troubleshooting Page for more info.
- The tags are lockable by some 3rd Party tag writing apps. However, once locked they can NEVER be unlocked or re-written to so be careful.
- Your phone must be built with NFC technology in order to make use of it. However, NFC (like WiFi & Bluetooth) can be turned on or off. Make sure you have NFC enabled in your phone settings to make use of AndyTags NFC Stickers.
- NFC Chips contain a coil of metal based material with a micro-chip attached to it. When you place your NFC enabled phone near the chip it makes use of the electromagnetic fields generated from your phone to produce enough power to activate the chip so that information can be transferred. Yep, this is the kind of cool stuff we've seen on Star Trek come to real life!
- See our special NFC Compatibility page explaining this issue.
- There was an old NFC bug on older ICS versions 4.0.0, 4.0.1, & 4.0.2 but is was resolved in 4.0.3 and moving forward and shouldn't be an issue for anyone anymore. This bug only kept the device from programming/reading a blank NFC Tag. Once the tag was written to with a web address or anything by another source, the Android phone could then detect and rewrite or read it with no problem. You can see what version of Android your phone is running by going into settings and selecting "About Device" or "About phone". Remember NFC stickers will still work with versions 4.0.0-4.0.2 - they just need to have something written to them first. If you find your phone is one of these versions, first check to see if you can update to 4.0.4 (which is better overall); if you can't update but you want to order and use AndyTags NFC Stickers, contact us first and we can possibly write a website address to your tags for you for a small fee so that they are usable with your phone.
Have other questions about NFC? Use the contact form on our Contact Us page.
We'll do our best to answer any questions you have.
We'll do our best to answer any questions you have.
NFC on Wikipedia
Learn more technical info about Near Field Communication by clicking the image to the left and reading Wikipedia's NFC Page.
Learn more technical info about Near Field Communication by clicking the image to the left and reading Wikipedia's NFC Page.
