[turtle]

I read an article about placing NFC tags around your home to work with Shortcuts. I never really thought about this given NFC wasn't an option with the ability was first physically added to the phone. You could unlock select hotel rooms and such, but that was about it. Apparently today you can use NFC willy-nilly.

So my question is: does anyone use them on these forums? If so, what do you use them for?

The article suggested that you create shortcuts in the app and then program the NFC tag to trigger that shortcut. This way you can initiate the shortcut manually or by tapping your phone to the tag. You can get 40 tags for ~$13 that are PVC and about the size of a quarter. Seems like there is a lot of potential for something like this.

[turtle]

So I take it no one uses these at all?

I might just have to buy some to play with and test it out. It seems like it could be really handy to have once configured.

[Brad]

The only remotely common thing I've ever seen even people do with NFC tags is to write Amiibo data to them so they don't have to buy/hoard/store/transport all the figurines, and even that is a pretty tiny niche and requires a specific type of NFC tag (though they're also pretty cheap).

[turtle]

I've used them before a number of times. Skylanders, Minecraft Earth mini figs... that kind of thing. What I've never used it for is automation though. That is what I'm thinking about.

So I went ahead and threw $14 at a pack of tags and will play. I figure it can't hurt and I've thrown $14 at worse things than this. Here is a PC Mag article that talks about ideas for using the NFC tags around your house. I guess it is also iPhone XS and up though, just just the X.

[turtle]

I got my tags in today. I'm like a kid in a candy store right now. It is amazing the things you can have them do. Basically, if you have a Shortcut in the app then you can make an NFC tag trigger it.

The best I've done so far is with one of my Minecraft Earth minis that triggers some lights to turn on. Basically the NFC chip in the mini fig is readable for Shortcuts and I have it initiate a Scene in Home.app.

However, you can don some really ornate and intricate things with this as well with scripting and such within Shortcuts. Apparently you can even add IFTTT to the mix and go super extreme. Right now I'm using it to turn lights on with my phone (via tap) and log my water intake.

I'm going to do more... but this is essentially the "Hello World" of NFC tags for me. Totally worth the $14 for the pack of tags from Amazon.

[turtle]

So the more I look into this I understand better why more people don't use them. Shortcuts can be real programming rather than just handy multi-tasking buttons. Personally I think it will be worth it in the end for people to take the time to learn them.

[chucker]

I occasionally remember this feature exists and really can’t figure out a good use case.

[turtle]

I've gotten a few cases that work well. Turning on the light in my bedroom is one. While I can use my voice, my phone is almost always in my hand so now I can tap to turn on the light. I eat mints at my desk all the time, now I tap a spot to log the calories into the food intake tracking app. I have one for water but always forget to actually use it.

My most commonly used one is actually one that starts my workout playlist and plays it to a specific speaker. So when I get ready to workout I tap the phone and my tunes are playing what I want and where I want them.

[turtle]

So the shortcuts I'm doing are growing and I'm really liking how this is working out. I'm about to add some logic to my tags to that the items being controlled check states and will reverse so I can use the same tag to turn on and off!

[turtle]

Today I finally took my workouts to a new level. Using NFC tags I can now start my workouts as well as set music and lighting the way I want it with Home and Workout on my Watch!

Mrs T is amazing and makes my lunch so I'm eating very shortly after working out since I normally use my lunch break to do to. She wanted me to remind her of when I did my workout and relied on the notification from the Watch Workout app that I had completed the workout.

There were a few routines I did starting my workout with M, W, F and Tu, Th being the same grouping. The routine is always the same on completing the workout though. So this meant I had three routines that automating would be awesome.

I had one for M, W,F already but it needed to be tweaked. So I updated it to send a message to Mrs T that I started my workout. I also discovered that the automation can trigger the "workout" to start on my Watch too! So now my "Strength Day" NFC tag does the following:

• Start "Workout Tunes" playlist on iPhone
• Set playback destination to Gym
• Turn on Dance Floor Lights
• Start Traditional Strength Training with Open Goal
• Send "Starting workout" message to Mrs T

My treadmill day is simpler. I normally watch shows (Bad Batch right now) while on the treadmill so I don't need music:

• Turn on Dance Floor Lights
• Start Indoor Run Workout with Open Goal
• Send "Starting my run" message to Mrs T

The Finished Workout is cool because it works for either day even though Music isn't playing on run days:

• Pause Music on iPhone
• Set playback destination to iPhone
• Turn off Dance Floor lights
• Turn on basement foyer light
• Sent "Finished workout" to Mrs T

So now I can simply tap my phone to the specific NFC tag and I don't have to think about it anymore, it just does it. I might even add a control to the start workout ones to turn on the treadmill in case it is off. I always workout at the same time now and it is on a schedule to turn on five minutes before I start my workout so it doesn't seem needed. If I start my workout early though, it would be handy if it just makes sure it is on. I run for 5 minutes before starting my strength routine so it seems to make sense to do this. I think I will now!

[drewprops]

Whither dost one barter for the boon of such wonders?


...

[Brad]

I don't know which ones T is using, but I know you can buy blank NFC tags in bags of tens to hundreds from Amazon. Funny that I mentioned this way back in February 2021…

Originally Posted by Brad The only remotely common thing I've ever seen even people do with NFC tags is to write Amiibo data to them so they don't have to buy/hoard/store/transport all the figurines, and even that is a pretty tiny niche and requires a specific type of NFC tag (though they're also pretty cheap).

I actually ended up doing this myself. My wife plays a lot of Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch, and last winter, I got a bag of blank NFC tokens and wrote Amiibo data to them for a bunch characters that are practically impossible to find or are absurdly expensive because they're out of print and only sold by third-party collectors. Now she can trade out villagers to her heart's content.

I got a bag of 200 NFC 215 plastic tokens (about the size of a quarter) for $50. The ones I got look like this:

[turtle]

The post you quoted above was one post before where I posted a link to the ones I got. They aren't available anymore, but basically the same as what you pictured. They are just small vinyl disks that you can set to trigger Shortcuts.


I played with it and I can actually trigger routines with Minecraft Earth Minifigs, which I have a bunch of. I'm sure you can use Amiibos to trigger shortcuts too if these disks work as Amiibos.

So in Shortcuts you set a Personal Automation and choose to have it be triggered by NFC.


Then it looks like this in the Shortcuts app on your phone. Really cool actually. I haven't done much with the minifigs, but did test that Skylanders do not work for this.

[drewprops]

This is FASCINATING.

Anyone remember the Star Wars prequel action figure Comm Tech chips? Each figure came with a little stand that held a chip. If you had the reader you could wave the chip over the reader to play prerecorded audio clips stored on each chip.


...

[turtle]

I do! You can do that with these tags and Shortcuts too!

[turtle]

I played with these some more and decided to do a single tag with logic for my desk lamp. It is running a Nanoleaf Essentials bulb in it that is tied to my Home(Kit). With Shortcuts you can use logic for "If Then" and it is working really well overall!


The first "Set Desklamp" is to turn it on. The second "Set Desklamp" is to turn it off.

While this isn't really a major thing, it means only one tag to make my lamp change states. I thought about how I could make this work for other automations like my workout tags mentioned above, but that isn't practical because there are so many steps within those "actions".