Menu
To be more specific, I'm trying to implement an Android application, which forces the phone to operate as an RFID tag. This tag is read by scanners placed around doors (thus the > 4 inches constraint) identifying the person and his whereabouts.
The phone will act as a smart tag, thus providing further use cases.
Thank you.
219
Can my phone be used as RFID tag? Yes, you can use your phone as RFID tag. For Android or Windows phones you enable NFC. In case of an Apple you need to enable Bluetooth.
Active RFID systems, on the other hand, can typically be read from 300 feet (90 meters) away, but many can now go up to 1,500 feet (460 meters) or more by employing signal repeaters.
Phones as RFID Cards What's interesting, though, is that this tech is not limited to access cards and readers: Most modern smartphones have an RFID chip inside them. Moreover, this RFID chip adheres to the NFC standard, meaning that all smartphones these days can operate as NFC cards.
Originally, NFC built on the ISO 14443 standard for transactions. This standard limited the read range to a few inches in order to prevent eavesdropping on tag-to-reader communication. More recently, NFC has incorporated the ISO 15693 standard, which offers a maximum read range of about 3 feet.
Most of the NFC enabled Android phones have low level capacity to emulate cards. The NXP chip that is used in the phones as well as the android kernel supports card emulation. However, the high level Android API does not expose these features most likely because some obvious security problems with such feature. To be able to read existing cards and emulate them would make it possible to easily duplicate access cards and other RFID/NFC tags and even some smart cards. This is already possible with the right equipment but to put that capability in the hands of every person with an Android phone might upset whole industries. For example, all physical access control systems rely on cards that could easily be duplicated by using an android phone. I think this feature is not there because enabling it would cause HUGE upset in multiple industries.
You can see that the kernel has support for card emulation (that is what Google Wallet Tap & Pay is using to enable you to use your phone for all your credit cards etc.):
git clone https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/libnfc-nxp If you do low level "hacking" you can get access to these features.
62
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With
