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You can use these around the house or car for location-tap automation. Tap on NFC tag and mobile phone can trigger a custom shortcut for local action or SSH scr

You can use these around the house or car for location-tap automation. Tap on NFC tag and mobile phone can trigger a custom shortcut for local action or SSH script to Linux SBC or micro PC. Response time is about one second. Even the iPhone SE2 has an NFC reader. For vision-impaired people, NFC tags can be attached to objects and the phone can read an audio description when the object is tapped against phone.

ck45 2y ago
This reminds me a bit of Nabaztags, or maybe the reverse. They would also read something that resembles NFC and could perform an action.
- Tijdreiziger 2y ago
  Around that time, I recall there being a lot of hype around RFID tags. E.g. the Touchatag was just a bunch of RFID tags and a USB RFID reader, but marketed as a consumer product. This never really seems to have caught on, though. Nowadays, I suppose most consumers do have RFID tags (debit cards, transport cards, building keys, e-Passports), they just might not be aware of the underlying technology.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    All the patents and "sekhurity" isn't helping. A decade ago, I ended up with a bunch of programmable NFC stickers that my Galaxy S7 suddenly wasn't able to read, because some MIFARE intellectual property issue retroactively bricked this class of NFC stickers. Good luck figuring out where on the compatibility matrix the Amazon listing you're looking at is.
    - stacktrust 2y ago
      We need a name for the phase of innovation curves after IP warlords have completed vision quests, leaving a stable landscape. This vendor has an array of RFID products: https://gototags.com https://gototags.com
    - lxgr 2y ago
      MIFARE (classic) tags were never really compliant with any industry standard (whether freely available or patent-encumbered) and are not actually NFC tags, so many systems betting on that but later wanting to e.g. change reader chip vendors ended up with issues such as this. (There's a way of writing NFC/NDEF-formatted data to them, but it's only readable by NXP chips.) If you buy any standard NFC forum tag, chances are pretty good that it'll work with any Android or iOS device. The Ntag series has worked pretty well for me on both OSes and across various phones; I have one that instantly and cross-platform rickrolls everybody tapping it.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Given that these things are essentially QR codes via another medium, I'm not surprised that it never caught on: QR codes are much cheaper to make (it costs nothing to include them on a leaflet other than some extra ink/toner!) and basically serve the same purpose. Where they make more sense is when they actually include dynamic information: Some of the newer tags can e.g. include an authentication tag in the URL part, which lets you verify the tag's authenticity (together with a web service that keeps track with the high watermark of opened sequence numbers). I wouldn't call that "RFID" anymore, though; to me, RFID means transmitting only an identifier, with all the logic happening on the backend, but ISO 14443 tags get most interesting/useful when they go beyond that and do things like authentication or local processing.

ck45 2y ago

This reminds me a bit of Nabaztags, or maybe the reverse. They would also read something that resembles NFC and could perform an action.

Tijdreiziger 2y ago
Around that time, I recall there being a lot of hype around RFID tags. E.g. the Touchatag was just a bunch of RFID tags and a USB RFID reader, but marketed as a consumer product. This never really seems to have caught on, though. Nowadays, I suppose most consumers do have RFID tags (debit cards, transport cards, building keys, e-Passports), they just might not be aware of the underlying technology.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  All the patents and "sekhurity" isn't helping. A decade ago, I ended up with a bunch of programmable NFC stickers that my Galaxy S7 suddenly wasn't able to read, because some MIFARE intellectual property issue retroactively bricked this class of NFC stickers. Good luck figuring out where on the compatibility matrix the Amazon listing you're looking at is.
  - stacktrust 2y ago
    We need a name for the phase of innovation curves after IP warlords have completed vision quests, leaving a stable landscape. This vendor has an array of RFID products: https://gototags.com https://gototags.com
  - lxgr 2y ago
    MIFARE (classic) tags were never really compliant with any industry standard (whether freely available or patent-encumbered) and are not actually NFC tags, so many systems betting on that but later wanting to e.g. change reader chip vendors ended up with issues such as this. (There's a way of writing NFC/NDEF-formatted data to them, but it's only readable by NXP chips.) If you buy any standard NFC forum tag, chances are pretty good that it'll work with any Android or iOS device. The Ntag series has worked pretty well for me on both OSes and across various phones; I have one that instantly and cross-platform rickrolls everybody tapping it.
- lxgr 2y ago
  Given that these things are essentially QR codes via another medium, I'm not surprised that it never caught on: QR codes are much cheaper to make (it costs nothing to include them on a leaflet other than some extra ink/toner!) and basically serve the same purpose. Where they make more sense is when they actually include dynamic information: Some of the newer tags can e.g. include an authentication tag in the URL part, which lets you verify the tag's authenticity (together with a web service that keeps track with the high watermark of opened sequence numbers). I wouldn't call that "RFID" anymore, though; to me, RFID means transmitting only an identifier, with all the logic happening on the backend, but ISO 14443 tags get most interesting/useful when they go beyond that and do things like authentication or local processing.