How To Use NFC on Android? How does it work?

Have you ever used your smartphone to pay in a Starbucks or a convenience store? If you did, then you have already experienced the technology——NFC.

Recent years have witnessed exponential growth of NFC mobile paying. Although we have already used it to manage our day-to-day lives, many still have few ideas of what it is and how it works.

To understand how NFC works is important because it may continue to change our lives in different ways. So here is a guide to NFC to prep you up for future NFC-related transformation.

What is NFC?

NFC is the acronym of near-field communication. It is a technology that allows two devices to communicate with each other wirelessly from a very close distance. NFC evolved from another technology called RFID. So let’s talk about RFID first before digging deep into NFC.

What is RFID and How it is related to NFC?

RFID stands for Radio-frequency identification. RFID refers to a technology that uses radio waves from a reader to track specific tags.

The most common scenario for that is the plastic things on clothes or other high-priced items in a store. They are the often-seen example of RFID tags. If you have ever seen the big equipment on either side of a mall entrance, then you can easily understand how RFID works.

This equipment called reader is used for tracking RFID tags. When you pass a reader with an RFID tag, the antenna in the tag picks up radio waves from the reader, which in turn activates the tag so that it can send a signal back to the reader to sound an alarm.

If you understand what RFID is, then it is not difficult for you to know NFC, as it is a high-frequency version of RFID. But NFC works much faster from a closer distance than RFID.

Types of NFC Devices

A NFC device can be passive or active. Passive NFC devices, such as a NFC tag, contain information that other devices can read but do not read any information itself.

While active NFC devices such as a smartphone, can send and receive data by switching between the normal active (transmitting) state and a passive (receiving) state. For example, a smartphone can collect information from NFC tags or exchange information with other compatible phones.

How Does NFC Technology Work in a Smartphone?

Most smartphones are built with a NFC chip, which makes the smart device both a NFC reader and a NFC tag. This enables NFC technology to work in three modes in a smartphone.

1. Card Emulation Mode

As its name implies, in this mode, a smartphone acts like a smart contactless chip; it sends information to a contactless reader in a store, e.g. a payment terminal. So your digital wallet pops up and asks you to confirm payment. The common NFC apps are Android Pay, Samsung Pay or Apple Pay.

2. Reader Mode

In this case, a smartphone behaves like a contactless chip reader and the chip is a NFC tag. You can scan a NFC tag to enjoy seamless user experiences across channels from offline to mobile. For instance, if you are tired of telling Wi-Fi passwords to your customers in your cafe, you can skip the hassle with a NFC tag on each table.

3. Peer-to-peer Mode

This mode is mainly about data sharing between Android devices in close proximity. When two Android smart phones get in range, applications like Android Beam or Huawei Beam will present a prompt asking if you want to transfer content like music, documents, photos or videos to the other Android device.

How to use NFC for Mobile Payment with Blackview Smartphones?

In the guide, we will learn how to use Google Pay with Blackview A100:

Activate NFC on A100

How to Set up Google Pay

How to add a debit or credit card

How to Use Google Pay in a Store?

When you finish all the steps above, you can now try to pay with A100 in a store. But before that, you should confirm with the cashier that the terminal actually does support Google Pay. To do so, follow steps below:

Of course, NFC can be applied to many other situations. For example, you can use NFC to launch apps depending on your location, instantly connect to a Wi-Fi network, dim the phone screen at bedtime, turn off notifications, or set alarms and timers and more. After hearing all this, you must be eager to experiment with NFC technology yourself. Go find out whether there are other ways to use NFC and share them with us on Facebook.

Which Smartphone is NFC-equipped?

NFC-supported devices are growing in number and here is a list of NFC-equipped smartphones from NFC World. However, that’s not all. We have listed all the NFC phones of Blackview which launched before Dec. 2021 below:

If your device runs on Android 4.4 or later, you should be able to pay with Google Pay. Samsung's devices have another option——Samsung Pay. For content exchange, Android smartphones based on 4.4 to 9.0 have Android Beam to share digital data with others. (However, Android Beam has been discontinued in 2019.)

Apple hasn’t equipped its iOS devices with NFC for a long time until the latest iPhone 12, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max and 12 Mini which allow NFC tags through the Launch Center Pro app. Version 3 of the app includes NFC triggers for iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max for actions via custom NFC stickers.

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