Near-Field Communication for Android-NFC Overview

Near-Field Communication (NFC) is a set of short-range wireless technologies. It usually requires a distance of 4 cm or shorter to initialize the connection. NFC allows users to share small data loads between NFC tags and Android devices or between two Android devices.

NFC tags have complex classifications. Simple NFC tags only provide read and write syntaxes. In some cases, you can only read the programmable area of a card in read-only mode at a time. Complex NFC tags provide mathematical computing capabilities, and encrypted hardware is used to authenticate access to a single sector. The most complex NFC tag contains the computing environment, allowing complex interactive code to be executed on the tag. Data stored in tags can also be written in various formats, but most Android framework APIs use NDEF (NFC Data Exchange Format)-based standards.