Google adopted the use of NFC technology with the release of the then flagship device Nexus S. NFC has been there from quite some time, however we have not seen wide spread adoption. There are several reasons to that. I am going to talk about one of the factors in this post. However, we at Flomio believe that seamless adoption of NFC will make your life easy. We welcome you to join our NFC party!

When will someone be blown away by any technology and use it?

I believe people will use any technology if it really solves a problem they have been facing. If it is cheap and affordable. Most importantly it has to be simple and intuitive to use. A classic example for this is the iPad, nobody needs formal training on how to use an iPad. iPad is a device that appeals to a 3 year old kid, 90 year old and even a “Cat”. NFC chip manufacturers (Texas Instruments, ST Micro, NXP, Kovio etc) have been trying hard to make developers life easy by providing various kinds of development tools. Same goes with the Google Android ecosystem which has evolved over years. What’s missing is the awesomeness factor.

What’s wrong with the solutions out there?

The current NFC solutions out there in the market won’t make you jump. We want to change that and deliver an awesome jaw dropping experience. There are many challenges to overcome but a big one is the size and placement of the NFC antenna on devices. Take for example the Nexus devices, the Nexus 7 has the NFC antenna at the top, whereas the Nexus S device has it at the center. Similarly on other android devices, the placement of the NFC antenna is totally random. Consumers need to familiarize themselves with each NFC device before using it consistently. Veterans in the industry often call this process “searching for the sweet spot”.

What is the problem?

As a user you intend to scan an NFC tag and you will be searching for the “sweet spot” on the back of the device for the tag to be read. Similarly if two devices are trying to exchange data over NFC, it totally kills the experience since it requires you to align the devices such that the antennas match against each other for proper electromagnetic coupling.

What did we do?

In an effort to mitigate this problem, we built the first of its kind and an awesome product called the NFC Patch Kit. The NFC Patch as the name suggests, can be stuck behind any device like Nexus to couple with the NFC antenna and the scanning area can be brought out. Now you specifically know where to scan the tag or place your device. You don’t have to hunt for the sweet spot anymore.

Demo time

Watch the NFC Patch Kit in action.

Conclusion…

Its not just the placement of the antenna or the development tools that matter from a user’s perspective. Its the overall experience and thats is what Flomio is all about. We recently rolled out a cloud based events engagement solution. In brief, the solution enables you to check in to an event and post it on to Facebook instantaneously without having to take out your phone. How is this possible? Check out the product page to learn more by yourself, until we cover the product in detail in another post.

-Udayan and the Flomies