NFC is now a well-established technology that works well for simple applications. Many users of, for example, Samsung’s TecTiles app or Egomotion’s Trigger tap a tag several times a day when they want to change their phone settings, set an alarm or send a message.

Where there is a well-established infrastructure, NFC also works extremely well for much more complex applications: rail travellers in Japan and South Korea take their NFC payment apps for granted, and use them in shops as well as in the public transport system.

In fact, any of the applications of NFC described in this book can be made to work, and some of them work very well in a single country, or with a limited range of handsets. However, NFC is a global set of standards and should work everywhere: any handset meeting the standard should be able to read any tag or exchange data with any other active device; any NFC-based service or app should work anywhere. This chapter explores the reasons why this is not the case, and some of the obstacles facing those who are seeking to promote or use NFC technology.

Technology

Standars and specifications

Some incompatibility is deliberate: manufacturers want to promote their devices and see no benefit in building in standards that are very unlikely to be used, in particular if this will increase costs.