Near Field Communication - What is it?

You’re probably aware that these day we can make contactless payments. Well that’s not the only thing we can do contactless…ly!

Welcome to Near Field Communication (NFC) - a Wifi-lite technology, not disimilar to Bluetooth, that could already be in your smartphone.

The technology behind it is actually quite simple, it’s a short range, low power wireless link evolved from radio frequency identification which passes information from one device to the another when held a short distance apart.

NFC is the next step towards a world with a “digital wallet”. With banks and retailers embracing the technology. Most smartphones are built with NFC technology and just by touching your phone on an NFC ‘tag’ you can pay for your good – it simply takes payment through an app on your phone.

We recently harnessed this technology to bring a successful event companies entry system into the technological era! The event was for a well-known car manufacturer who like everything to be slick and futuristic. So we produced a modern entry system for checking their guests in to the event.

Rather than your old fashioned clipboard and guest list, which let's be honest is a bit out-dated these days when most of our lives revolve around the digital world, they wanted something more 21^st Century!

We set about creating an app which could use Near Field Communication technology to register each guest as “checked-in” when they arrive at the event.

Each guest was given a wristband before the event, which house a tiny NFC tag. When they arrived, they simply swiped the wristband on one of the entry tablets - all NFC enabled (a Google Nexus was our tablet of choice…others are available!), which recognises the NFC tag within their band, checked them in and even sent them a text message with details of their table number for the evening.

Using NFC technology not only helped the event feel even more special, but started people talking and cut down on a lot of paperwork!

You'll probably start noticing NFC more and more in our every day lives, London buses now only except contactless payment and more companies are using it as part of their printed marketing campaigns to give customer an exclusive offer or direct them to a specific webpage. 

If you’re interested in learning more about NFC – give us a call on 01635 521654 or email info@appleprint.co.uk and see how you can WOW your audience.