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NFC or Near Field Communication is a technology that uses high frequency wireless communication to transfer data between devices over a short range (usually about 10 cm or so). This technology makes your life more convenient by making it very easy to exchange data and conduct transactions. It requires only at least one transmitting device, and another to receive the signal. A wide range of devices can use the NFC standard and can be considered either passive or active, depending on how the device works. Passive NFC devices include NFC tags, NFC stickers; NFC cards which can send information to other NFC enabled devices without a power source of their own. However, they don’t extremely process any information sent from other sources, and can’t hook up with other passive components. These often take the form of interactive signs on walls or advertisements. Active devices are able to both send and receive information, and can communicate with one another as well like passive devices. Smartphones are by far the most common implementation of active NFC devices; however public transport card readers and touch payment terminals also are good examples of the technology.
This is a simple technology evolved from RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) which uses electromagnetic induction in order to transmit information. An NFC chip operates as one part of a wireless link. Once it's activated by another chip, small amounts of data between the two devices can be transferred when held a few centimeters from each other. No pairing code is necessary to link up and because it uses chips that run on very low amounts of power (or passively, using evens less) it's much more power-efficient than other wireless communication types. NFC is compatible with hundreds of millions of contactless cards and readers already deployed worldwide. As both NFC and Bluetooth are different technologies, we cannot say that one is better than the other. However, NFC is quicker to set up, requires less power, and provides more security when compared to Bluetooth because of its shorter range.
What NFC does in your Phone?
Every OS maker has their own Apps that offer NFC Functionality. Android users have widest range to choose from like Google Wallet and Samsung Pay which can access your funds from contactless payment. Now a day Android users can also a special feature that support NFC technology called Android Beam through which users can simply transfer photos, contacts etc. by simply holding two phones together. Coming to Apple users and Microsoft users they can also avail this facility in which Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus have NFC functionality that works as similar as Google Wallet and also in the case of Microsoft windows users they can avail Microsoft Payments. Whichever device you have, from a local super market, railway station, or coffee shop you can avail contactless payments via your phones NFC chip by simply holding it close to a contactless payment terminal and instantly ,like swiping a credit card, the payment will complete. It’s not far, the replacement of entire card in wallet by NFC chips that could simply hold the unique info of every card we hold whether it be Business cards, loyalty cards etc. and can also be transmitted simply via NFC
