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Ask HN: What are the use cases for NFC outside of payments
40 points by robbiet480 on Sept 30, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 51 comments
What makes you excited about NFC? What do you want to see NFC do?

Most people center on the payments aspect of NFC but there are so many more. Off the top of my head:

* Payments (replacing credit/debit cards and stored value cards i.e. in a cafeteria)

* Building/security access

* Ticketing (especially plane tickets)

* Transit card support (i.e. Clipper/Oyster/Metrocard)

* Real world interaction with stickers (check into this place on Foursquare, update Facebook, etc)

* Advertising opportunities ("tap here to watch the trailer" on movie posters)

* As MOO just announced, business cards with NFC

Do any of these excite you? Is there anything I missed?

The reason I ask all this is because every time I talk about NFC my peers say that there is no adoption and no use case outside of payments. Obviously the iPhone doesn't have NFC yet but that shouldn't stop it's adoption in the Real World. There is a long list above of valid use cases, why aren't we seeing adoption yet?




Why aren't we seeing adoption yet? Quite simply, percentage of devices that support it are too low in contrast to the effort required to get any sort of deployment - a chicken and egg problem.

Adding support for QR codes requires some software (it's out there, and free usually) and a functioning camera with good enough resolution (again, almost omnipresent). NFC brings with it another chipset, another antenna and a chassis designed to have that antenna not mess with the others. If you want to do proper crypto with it, that's a rewiring of how you connect the SIM to your baseband to facilitate NFC-WI - I hope you're getting the picture here.

Geee is right about pairing being the other advantage asides from what I think are gimmicks like "bonking" to check into Foursquare. Realistically there is only a few ways to gain greater adoption: payments actually being deployed en-masse, or the incorporation of NFC chipsets into existing baseband modems.


FWIW as of June 2012 43M+ Oyster cards have been issued (which now cost £5 each although they previously used to cost £3) with over 80% of all public transport journeys in London (London Underground, Bus etc) being made through the card.

Considering this is a service for London that number is pretty incredible.

Statistics: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/242...


Sure, and I use my Oyster card most days.

But years ago TfL tried using NFC - a trial with the Nokia 6131. Ultimately it was rejected as it was too slow at the gates, a genuine concern in stations that see tens to hundreds of thousands move through it at peak times. Even now they still dismiss it as slow, as El Reg points out, despite the fact they don't appear to have actually redone any testing to confirm this.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/01/nfc_tube/print.html


I use an NFC card to get on the trains and trams in Dublin, I remember scanning it with my old Galaxy Nexus.


We use the lockitron app to let houseguests in (and we have many cause of AirBNB). Since you can give a key to someone with a simple email, it eliminates the hassle of arranging a time to meet for key exchange. https://lockitron.com/


At a hackathon we developed an NFC app that can scan food packaging and give you the instructions and a kitchen timer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ92FMl1qcE (I know, its blurry...)

After hacking with it, I have to say it is much more reliable than QR code scanning / barcode scanning. No problems with low light, shaking device etc. Replacing QR codes is probably not a very exciting use case, but I could see it happening.


Isn't it much more expensive than QR/barcode though? Since those are just printed on?


One huge thing you missed is device pairing. Nokia already uses NFC to pair their wireless accessories (headsets, speakers, etc). With wireless charging, it makes docks obsolete http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upo-e692lRg


Using an out of band channel, such as NFC, is defined in the Bluetooth secure simple pairing specification.


Agreed. While a lot of other uses may be more profound in the long run, this one seems most achievable in the short (least amount of security concerns and consumer education).


I can see this technology simplifying in person installation for small businesses. As in I walk into my local coffee shop and can install a payment app like Square with a tap or instead of handing me a leaflet to install the app at my local bank, let me do it instantly. I'm sure this would increase installs dramatically, especially at events or at museums.

Maybe to connect to the WiFi network or checkin on Foursquare in a cafe. In the British Airways lounge the other day I heard a lot of people going up to the desk asking which network it was, etc. This would fix a lot of the problems. Some people were fumbling to work out how to connect on their phone.

Companies like Tagstand allow any company to implement this instantly. I can see loyalty programmes being made using this tech.


Tracking stock pedigree and automatic stock taking.

I was in charge of writing a prototype system in 2007ish of a system with NFC scanners that could be deployed to schools to track children and their healthy choices (checking out exercise equipment, checking it back in, buying healthy food from the canteen, etc). The NFC tokens would be combined with cleverly fabricated dongles to make them more inviting. I was a bit concerned about the privacy aspects as my bosses got really carried away (tracking how often children use the toilet, etc), but it never got past the prototype.

Among some of the research I did I thought that being able to track the pedigree of a single item from manufacture through warehouses, backdock and eventually on to shelves would be amazing - for everyone.

And whilst the item was on that shelf, if each shelf had a reader, then it would be possible to do automatic stock-take of what it was carrying and communicate the results to some centralised system.


In San Francisco, PayByPhone has put stickers on many (all?) of the parking meters, enabling you to pay for your parking via their mobile app. In addition to a unique number, the stickers are also NFC-capable, so presumably an NFC phone owner can wave a phone against it to input the meter ID in the app.

(I use an iPhone, so this is speculation on my part.)


I've used those NFC stickers on the parking meters with my Nexus. You don't even need to have the PayByPhone app open or running. When I tapped my phone it automatically launched the app with the parking spot number inputted so I just had to confirm a duration.

Also, if you don't have the app installed, your phone should launch the Play Store to download and install it automatically.


'"What’d be cooler would be if you just pulled into the parking spot and walked away."'

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/irreducible/


I had an occasion to participate in project of a museum app which allowed people to use NFC-enabled phones as kind of interactive guides. There were NFC tags placed beside artworks and visitors with app installed on their phone could bring their device close to the tag and phone would launch the app to show more detailed informations about given exhibit. All data could be downloaded before going to the museum or during visit (there was free wi-fi inside museum building). It was launched in National Museum in Kraków and as far as I know worked quite well.

I've also heard of ideas like configuring devices over NFC, e.g. touch a tag with your phone and it will be configured to use local wi-fi network. You can use NFC in similar manner to transfer a link to a website, which I believe would be much more convenient that scanning QR code.


I use Android Beam fairly regularly. Sharing contact info, transferring files, etc. is all delightfully easy now.

I hardly ever use NFC to interact with anything other than other devices, but I suppose that's because those other things aren't very prominent in the U.S. yet.


One unmentioned deterrent to using NFC on Android (for cases where security is not important) is requiring the user to unlock the phone first. In ICS or later, NFC is no longer enabled at the lockscreen, presumably to address security concerns with the payments use cases.

In some cases, it can be just as easy to unlock your phone and execute an action manually rather than through NFC.

I also wonder if Square's "magical" Starbucks payments system will be future - using environmental cues in the background instead of requiring manual swipes of a phone to a terminal.


Personally I think there are many uses for NFC. The way I see it, NFC is a way to enable short range communication with physical objects in the real world that are NFC enabled as well. I speculate that a NFC mobile device can be used as your key to open NFC enabled secure locations and objects (e.g. car keys, office keys, house keys, safe locks). Another usage I speculate is with pet's and pet tags. If a pet is lost you could scan the pet or a tag and it will tell an individual who own's the pet and the pets name.


I have a night stand dock made of pencils and rubber bands (don't ask). It has an NFC tag attached to it. When I place my Android device in the stand, NFC Task Launcher detects the tag and it auto-launches the Dock Clock app which displays a pretty clock along with the local weather forecast.

I could do similar things with NFC tags under light switch plates by the front door or whatnot, but haven't found a non-geeky reason to do so, yet.


Generally speaking, you could just add it as another layer of security for proximity-based interaction as a three-factor authentication of sorts.

For instance, people can't open X without (1) a key/password, (2) a OTP password, and (3) an NFC device. It seems like a good way to add a proximity factor to authentication.

It doesn't have to replace something; it can also augment them. Especially when it's an automated process, not a manual one.


You could use NFC to exchange data. You could, for example, perform a hip bump to add somebody to your Tweetface circle; or grind on somebody to trade phone numbers; or leave a tip by rubbing somebody's pants pocket... all without directly manipulating phones!

(I imagine this'd be increasingly relevant as the screens on these things get bigger and bigger and it becomes difficult even to remove your phone from your pocket.)


Most (all?) NFC implementations require the screen to be on to perform NFC actions. Of course you could just slip your hand into someone's pocket and turn on the screen...


That's because the screen is the primary UI. But imagine authorizing NFC transactions using audio instead, or something as [currently] outlandish as a neural interface. Perhaps you could pre-emptively allow your phone to collect contact information before hitting the club.


I have a galaxy nexus and I love the idea behind NFC. Right now it feels like a gimmick because there really aren't places that take google wallet where I normally shop, and not many friends have NFC enabled devices.

That being said, I am really excited for NFC to grow.

Someone should kickstart a project that is a usb NFC phone sync tool. I think HP just announced a computer with a feature similar (the spectre?).


Intel demoed several Ultrabooks at CES 2012 earlier this year which had NFC built into the palm rest.

The use case they showed off at the press conference was to save you the hassle of typing your credit card info by just tapping your credit card to the palm rest. It could also be used to login to your computer for instance.


Just a spur of the moment opinion...but let me come up with a list...trading cards/games...meeting people socially...exchanging listed information on a specific field aka you make a list of great investors, one cellphone to cellphone tap and the other person has it...mmm hopefully that's good enough lol


Phone automation: http://launcher.tagstand.com/


Both Google and Nokia have demoed using NFC to switch audio being played on a mobile device to audio being played over another device. Setting up simple transfers like that makes sense, although it obviously requires another smart device or dumb device + alt streaming protocol.


Authentication, synchronization, ticketing, etc. I'd think something like requiring you to unlock your NFC device in order to "swipe" in would be pretty nifty 2-factor auth.

I'd suggest taking a look at the wikipedia page, it has a list of potential uses.


Seems like in the building seurity case, that could be a huge afffordable improvement over RFID tags; I.e. Tap and get a key that you respond to wth a crypto function vs. RFID where any idiot can scan and replicate your tag.


Nobody uses that sort of "dumb tag" RFID for building access purposes. For instance, the HID access cards use a challenge/response authentication with nonces. [0]

[0]: http://static.usenix.org/event/woot11/tech/final_files/Garci...


Thanks for sharing that. Wouldn't it still be cheaper to implement with software (and potentially more flexible) than with an integrated circuit?


How? It's a challenge/response protocol with the processing on the NFC chip/card/object.


Not sure you can copy all RFID tags; NFC is often classed as a type of RFID.


NFC is a subset of RFID.


Actually, it's the other way around. NFC is a superset of many different types of RFID standards that operate all under 13.56MHz - FeliCa, MiFARE, Topaz, ISO14443 etc in addition to include different communication protocols (SNEP for example) as well as payload standards (NDEF).


There are some arcade games in Japan that use an NFC card to keep track of player data. For example, Mahjong Fight Club uses one to allow for elaborate player rankings and detailed stat tracking.


Location/presence. It gives a reasonably strong indication that your device was probably in a location at that time (whether GPS was present, enabled, shared, etc. or not).


Found this an interesting point on speed from london's underground www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/07/london-underground-nfcs-just-too-slow/


Strong (hardware PKI based) authentication for mobile banking (user and transaction auth by touching phone to bank card).


I think this will be the next one, or 'chipped' ATM cards. NFC as a solution works better than the smart card standard though as the reader than do the request / challenge without having to insert the card. That said people bumping into you on the subway can too so there is protocol work to be done to insure that isn't a vulnerability.


This is not a big concern, all modern devices with NFC have to have the screen unlocked before the NFC radio turns on.


Replacing physical keys. You could use NFC to start your car or open your home's front door without a key.


Secure sign on. NFC reader attached to your PC, touch and sign in. Already possible on Linux.


I see NFC as a way to essentially enable interactions between physical objects


I had an idea where you could carry a sort of virtual business card around with you. Meet somebody? Tap your phone to theirs and they get a business card. When they get home they tap it to a computer and they get a big resume with links to your github or art repos or online examples of your work. It'd be really cool for networking events or job fairs and the like.


http://www.moo.com/blog/2012/09/27/the-business-cards-of-the...


Typical. Only posted on the 27th though, so my ideas are catching up the present.


Hmmm - not really. Microsoft in an old vision demo had just what you are talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

The whole video is really good if you have the time to watch it.


All the use cases for swiping are also use cases for NFC, but obviously the added convenience of NFC will probably encourage adoption in scenarios where swiping would have been too much.




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