What Is NFC And How To Use It On Your Android?

We all know very well that with the arrival of services like Android Pay or Samsung Pay, the NFC technologies have become very common. As nowadays most of the devices of the high and medium ranges incorporate NFC. As NFC has now become one of the essential elements in the smartphone world and not only that even there are reviewers who also reduce the score of a device if it does not offer this technology.

What Is NFC And How To Use It On Your Android?

With the arrival of services like Android Pay or Samsung Pay, the NFC technologies have become very common. As nowadays most of the devices of the high and medium ranges incorporate NFC. As NFC has now become one of the essential elements in the smartphone world and not only that even there are reviewers who also reduce the score of a device if it does not offer this technology.

What is NFC?

NFC stands for Near Field Communication, as its name itself implies, that it simply allows two devices to communicate over short distances. To do so, you need a transmitter and a receiver, while the devices compatible with NFC are divided into passive and active.

In the first group, we can find NFC tags and other small transmitters, which can send information to other devices without needing their own power supply. However, they do not process information sent by other sources and can not connect to other passive components.

As active devices we can find devices that are capable of sending and receiving data; They can communicate with each other and with passive components like the ones that we have mentioned above. Basically, the smartphones are the most popular active NFC devices, with payment compatible with the services like Android Pay and others.

How NFC technology works

Like Bluetooth, WiFi and all kinds of wireless signals, NFC works on the principle of sending information on radio waves. NFC technologies take their inspiration from RFID communications (Radio-frequency identification).

To make you better understand here’s an example, when you disconnect the house alarm with the key ring, or when you see those alarms fixed to the clothes in the shopping centers, at that time you are using applications of RFID technologies.

Although it is a wireless communication protocol, there is a fundamental difference between NFC, Bluetooth, and WiFi. As nowadays the need for a power supply gradually disappeared, because it is enough with the electromagnetic field produced by an active NFC component for a passive one to send data.

But, hold on, as if you are thinking that the wireless charging is done using NFC then you are wrong, as it is a protocol known as QI which is used to wirelessly charge any device. The frequency of data transmission between NFC devices is 13.56MHz, with speeds ranging from 106 to 424kilobits per second, which is pretty fast for most data transfers that are made from mobile devices.

How to activate and use NFC on Android device?

In most current smartphones activating the NFC is as easy as displaying the notification screen. As simply by clicking on the pre-inbuilt default icon you can simply activate the NFC on Android device and here’s the example image that we have mentioned below:-

With almost all security, activating NFC in this way the Android Beam will be activated automatically. This is a function that simply allows two Android devices to share data with each other, and the process works like this:-

• We need two devices with NFC and Android Beam enabled.
• Open the content that we want to share in one of them.
• Then we have to put the two devices stuck by the back.
• Now, we will receive a confirmation by audio and vibration once they have connected with each other.
• The receiver screen will be reduced in size, and the “touch to send” option will appear at the top of the screen.
• Now simply touch the receiver screen simply to begin the process.
• Once you have done, now you will receive a confirmation sound.
• When the process ends, you will receive another audio confirmation or the application that manages it will open the content that has been sent.

Among the contents that can be shared by NFC are the applications, URLs to access web pages, YouTube videos, contacts that are automatically saved in the receiver’s phonebook and photos.

Pay with your smartphone using NFC

The best-known applications of the NFC protocol is the mobile payments, currently, there are different services that cover this aspect, with Google Pay and Samsung Pay as the most popular within the Android world.

Before using any of these payment platforms, you must first register in one of them, and not only that even it is worth remembering that Samsung Pay is only compatible with Samsung smartphones, while Google Pay works on any Android devices that run the Android 4.4 or higher.

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