Easy Phone Automation with NFC Tags

instructables.com

23 points·kul··3 comments

NFC is cool technology, and I think we'll see some really interesting uses in the next year or two.

However, all of the examples in the article could just as easily be performed with some shortcuts programmed into your phone, accessible from an icon on the home screen.

Eg a "goodnight" button that dims your screen, turns off your ringtone and sets an alarm

Or an "I'm coming home" that texts your family with your ETA (based on your location?! That would be cool)

What I'd really like to see is an ITTT-style shortcut builder for iOS.

NFC only adds a little convenience to the setup, but you can call Tasker from the NFC tags. So when doing repetitive things it makes it easier. The problem as I see it is NFC security. You need to unlock the phone to turn NFC scanning on, but at that point why not use a shortcut. There needs to be a way to differentiate innocuous tags and critical tags in Android so you can scan with the lock screen up and execute these simple tasks.

I created a Tasker that when I scan my key fob will:

-Get GPS coordinates

-Get corresponding address

-SMS my wife that I am at that address and leaving along with a Google maps link

Now that is a great use of tasker.

For those of us without NFC enabled devices, I bet you could set up a QR code that when scanned, does the same thing (no $3 dollar tag necessary).

I think that NFC is going to blow up very soon, but I think that to make it truly useful it needs to work with your phone locked. I want a sticker on my desk so that when I sit down in the morning it starts tracking my time for the day. That is a vastly different experience than sitting down at my desk, pulling out my phone, unlocking it, remembering what I was doing, and tapping my hidden sticker.

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