NFC Actions Question?

[AndrewMember]

I am currently researching a concept for my company that would incorporate NFC technology. I am sort of new to this emerging technology, but consider myself having a general understanding of how it works. With that being said, our target market most likely will not have NFC capable handsets. Does the Android App NFC actions have the ability to read your Zapps? We would be pointing the Zapps to a specific URL. The dilemma I’m facing is this.  We would like to attach an audio file to a URL. The audio file would more than likely be 10 seconds or less. Any help that you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Best,

Andrew K.

[RichardKeymaster]

Does the Android App NFC actions have the ability to read your Zapps?

Absolutely.  In fact, Zapps are programmed using our NFC Actions application.  You can make them launch or install any application you like.  Zapps are simply regular NFC Type 2 tags (MiFare Plus 1K) that can be programmed with an Action and branded as you like (using our Printable Sheets).

We would like to attach an audio file to a URL.

You can get this done pretty easily.  You will need to add the audio file to your web server in a directory that maps to a URL endpoint (eg http://yoursite.com/audio/yourfile.mp3).  Since all browsers now support mp3 playback, it will just be a matter of programming the URL into the tag.  In NFC Actions you can select New Quick Tag->Add->Browse URL->http://yoursite.com/audio/yourfile.mp3  Now every time you scan this tag it will automatically open the browser and play the audio.  If the device scanning the tag does not have NFC Actions installed, then it will prompt to install it from the Google Play store.

There are some use cases –like on Smart Posters and Marketing materials– where it makes more sense to use the standard NFC Forum URL type.  This type will allow for any NFC Forum compliant device to launch the URL without the help of NFC Actions.  The standard is now followed by Android, Windows, and Blackberry devices.  So your user would be able to tap their device on the tag to get audio playback without needing to install NFC Actions first. For this you can use NFC TagWriter and select Create, write and store->New->Write Bookmark->Create new bookmark->http://yoursite.com/audio/yourfile.mp3.

Hope that helps.  Let me know once you try this out and if the instructions were accurate.  Thanks.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 9 months ago by  Richard.
• This reply was modified 11 years, 9 months ago by  Richard.
• This reply was modified 11 years, 9 months ago by  Richard.

[AndrewMember]

Hi Richard,

Thank you for your reply. I greatly appreciate it. So just to clarify, if our customers do NOT have an NFC capable smartphone, we can direct them to the Google Play store to download the NFC actions App. Once they have the App open, they can then read the NFC sticker/tag through the App? As the example noted above, they can have the App act as a reader instead of the smartphone is that correct? I’m assuming the Flojack then comes into play if they end user does not want to read a sticker/tag by using the NFC actions app is that correct? Again, thank you for your assistance.

Andrew K.

[RichardKeymaster]

Without an NFC capable smartphone, the NFC Actions app will not be able to read NFC stickers or tags.  There is internal hardware in NFC capable smartphones that allow NFC Actions to do it’s magic.  The FloJack is an accessory that provides the NFC hardware as an accessory and uses the audio jack to communicate with it.  NFC Actions is designed to work with the FloJack and/or internal NFC hardware contained in the smartphone.

The key misunderstanding is that NFC requires special hardware to work, it’s not just a software or app thing.  That’s why iOS devices can’t read or write NFC tags.  They need a FloJack for that.

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