NFC is making our lives Contactless
Contactless technology is emerging in more and more aspects of our everyday life; from payments which don't require us to take cash out of our wallet to toys which can be updated and interact with video games.
The word 'Contactless' itself seems to have become a buzzword not just in tech circles, but throughout both the business and consumer landscapes. It is not surprising, as the term sums up what the technology is about - i.e. being able to facilitate actions through data exchange without the need to touch anything. What lies behind the magic, of course, is Near Field Communication (NFC). The chips that enable NFC are commonly found in Smartphones, and can be credited with many of the most exciting mobile technology innovations that can be described as Contactless in recent times.
Because it has permeated into our consumer habits so quickly, Contactless payment has tended to hog the headlines when it comes to Contactless technology and NFC, but lift the lid on a number of industries and we can see that Contactless is far more than simply a fad - it is making significant differences to operational efficiency in many areas.
Take healthcare for instance. Powered by NFC, Contactless technology is now making monitoring bed capacity a doddle in many hospitals, allowing management to see exactly how many are empty or occupied from our centralised app. For the army of mobile workers in the healthcare sector, another of our NFC apps is also the reason why it is much easier to log patient visits and track workloads.
Across multiple sectors, product identification has been revolutionised by NFC stickers which are able to relay information on items from machinery to gadgets and consumable media - all it takes is a little sticker.
One industry which has really pushed the Contactless boundaries is marketing. We are now able to communicate more information from a small card or a fridge market than we ever were from a pile of brochures. It has made the delivery of targeted content less cumbersome for the recipient and given it an 'opt in' element which strengthens the message. And the good news is there are no rules when it comes to the items containing the NFC chip - we currently stock a wide range of branded NFC gifts from pens to keyrings.
Over the past year, keeping our distance from people and objects has become part of life, as the world has adapted to the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic. That's pushed Contactless technology to a more prominent position. But when we talk about Contactless, what do we mean? How does the technology work? And which uses does it have? That's what we will discuss in this blog.
Apple's iOS 14 has arrived, so what does that mean for Near Field Communication (NFC)? The most exciting news is that iOS 14 effectively makes the iPhone's NFC support complete, bringing it into line with Android.
We'd like to applaud ABI Research for a fantastic study into the current uses of silicon-based Near Field Communication (NFC) Tags across different industries, and the future of the field. The name of the study - 'NFC Tags Ready for the Mainstream' - does a neat job of summarising the findings, but in this blog, we would like to delve a little deeper into the results of the research.
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