At this year's Google I/O conference, people's eyeballs are probably attracted by Nexus7, Google Glass and other attractions have passed, but no one may pay attention to such a number: Android product director Hugo Barra mentioned in his speech that Google now ships 1 million NFC-enabled Android mobile devices every week.
According to Google's previous data, a total of 400 million Android devices are now activated around the world, and the current activation rate is basically 1 million units per day. This means that among new Android devices, Android phones that support NFC will account for about 15%. Therefore, perhaps inadvertently, the NFC function has slowly come to everyone. Although many people currently believe that the future of NFC is not optimistic, they also hold a wait-and-see attitude towards the prospects of its application in mobile payments. But we have to admit that with the popularity of hardware, at least NFC will become the first choice for users in terms of file sharing, data exchange and device connection because of its convenience.
What is nfc?
Near Field Communication (NFC), also known as short-range wireless communication, is a short-distance high-frequency wireless communication technology that allows non-contact point-to-point data transmission (within ten centimeters) between electronic devices to exchange data. This technology evolved from contact-free radio frequency identification (RFID) and is backward compatible with RFID. It was first successfully developed by Sony and Philips and is mainly used to provide M2M (Machine to Machine) communication in handheld devices such as mobile phones. Because near field communication has natural security, NFC technology is considered to have great application prospects in fields such as mobile payment.
What is the nfc function?
If I tell you directly what the functions of nfc are, many friends may not understand them very well. Let us use two examples to let everyone feel the charm of the nfc function and let you know what the nfc function is and how to use it.
Example 1: Samsung uses NFC to launch Holiday Inn hotel service app
NFC Samsung Hotel Service
The NFC function on smartphones can do more than simple wireless electronic payments and close contact with connected devices. It can also do things that were not possible before. Short-range wireless technology (NFC) expands new avenues for payment methods and shopping itself. And now, it seems it can open the door for you.
NFC smartphones that utilize secure network connections and mobile networks can be said to be an ideal key.
\ Among the keys we have used for a long time, the key has two important properties. First of all, the function of the key is to unlock, allowing objects that have been locked continuously to gain entry permission. Secondly, the key means that only the key holder has access rights, which is why we need to ensure the security of the key. The electronic key changes all this. Today's electronic keys are very good at identifying the authorized key holder. Now the pinnacle of this technology appears on smartphones. For example, Samsung mobile phones will provide new services for NFC during the London Olympics. It has launched a hotel service solution designed for Holiday Inn's London Statford branch. Through a special app on the Galaxy SIII mobile phone, guests can check-in and check-out, and use the NFC function of the phone to open the room door.
This method of opening the door is smart enough. It uses the tenant's mobile phone possession and security protocols to identify whether the owner has the authority to open the door. You don't even need to carry an extra key with you when you're holding your phone.Just like when you use a low-tech key card, once you time out at the hotel, it automatically revokes your authorization to use your mobile phone to access hotel facilities. Also, during the Olympic Games, this special app will also provide guests with localized content and Olympic information including game results. Not only that, this app can also control TVs, lights, air conditioners and other appliances in the hotel, and provide preferential information based on the guest's location.
Starting from this hotel service system, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, we can use our mobile phones to open the door, use our mobile phones to confirm our personal identity and enter ATM automatic banking at night, and use our mobile phones to open our front door. All of these unlocked moments can be associated with your identity and geographic information, becoming a valuable source of information for future local advertising. While mobile payment eliminates the need for us to carry wallets, NFC may eliminate the need for us to carry keys.
Is there anything else that NFC can't do? Panasonic realizes the use of mobile phones to control home appliances
Panasonic is a well-known large-scale electrical appliance company with a wide range of electrical product lines, ranging from refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, to mobile phones and cameras. Panasonic's home appliances are also more aggressive in style and often have some unexpected designs. The new thing we want to introduce today is that Panasonic connects their products through the new technology NFC, and uses Android phones to control various home appliances. This also reflects that NFC is gradually entering our lives. More and more manufacturers are using NFC on mobile phones to implement various novel and practical functions.
Panasonic recently developed a new Android application. By installing this application on your mobile phone, you can control home appliances. Of course, you must first own an Android phone with NFC function, and then buy a specific model of Panasonic appliances.
Panasonic appliances that currently support this function include refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, microwave ovens, rice cookers and other products.
When the mobile phone and the refrigerator are sensed, the temperature of the refrigerator at different times and some related information can be read. The editor thinks that the use of this technology in refrigerators is not very useful.
When used with a washing machine, you can record your previous usage habits. Next time you need to work in the same mode, you only need to use your phone to sense it without having to make complicated settings.
Used in conjunction with a microwave oven, you can see that there are various recipes in the app, and you can complete the required heating mode by simply sensing it with your phone.
When used in conjunction with the air conditioner, specific switching times can be set, so setting through the mobile phone is very intuitive.
What else is the use of NFC mobile phones?
Mobile payment is not all of NFC technology:
Compared with ordinary mobile phones, NFC mobile phones have the following three additional functions:
\ 1. Can be used as a POS machine, that is, "read" mode
3. Can do point-to-point communication like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
The above is the charm of NFC mobile phones, but for these three functions, what price do operators and mobile phone terminal manufacturers have to pay? First of all, for terminal manufacturers, if they add NFC chips to their mobile phone products, the cost will increase by dozens of yuan. Don't underestimate these tens of yuan. From the perspective of terminal manufacturers, the pressure is still quite big. The key is that the cost has gone up, but there is no profit point, which means that there is no money to be made from the core mobile payment industry chain. At this time, if the operator's customization does not provide a strong subsidy to terminal manufacturers, who is willing to lose money and make a profit?
On the other hand, mobile payment is indeed a new business growth point for operators, but it faces the same problem as terminal manufacturers, which means that subsidies for terminal manufacturers will never return. Which operator would be willing to make such a bet?
\In fact, if you want to implement mobile payment applications on mobile phones, you need to fully cooperate with multiple parties including banks, mobile phone manufacturers, operators, and websites. The adaptation process is very slow. Just relying on a few mobile phones with built-in NFC chips is not enough.
Although many experts say that the popularization of NFC may take another four to five years, according to data released by Google, it may be that the development speed may far exceed our expectations, and the speed of development may be even faster in the future.
Why do you say that? Now everyone knows that when a new mobile phone or tablet is released, NFC has almost become a standard feature. Since Nokia's high-end, high-end and low-end mobile phones all claimed to support NFC technology, Microsoft's Windows Phone and Win8 tablets have also begun to popularize NFC on a large scale, and even launched some practical functions using NFC as a selling point. In addition, Google's original Google Wallet was based on NFC mobile payment technology. After a period of silence, Google brought up NFC again with the help of Nexus7.
Of course, the most important thing is Apple's next generation iPhone. Although the iPhone market is mainly in North America, Australia and parts of Asia, if the iPhone supports NFC, Apple fans like religious believers will definitely make a huge contribution to the popularity of NFC. According to Passbook in iOS6, iPhone prototypes, and some of Apple's cooperation tendencies, the next generation iPhone is very likely to support NFC technology, especially in NFC mobile payment.
But although Apple still doesn't know whether it is reliable or not. But based on what we know so far, Nokia, Microsoft, Samsung, Google, etc. have begun to make efforts. No matter where NFC mobile payment goes, at least this year we can see the hope of popularizing NFC technology. Therefore, the editor hereby advises everyone that those who want to try something new can buy a mobile phone that supports NFC technology to experience it. However, if you are buying an NFC mobile phone and waiting for it to enable mobile payment, it is best not to spend more money.
