In our last installment of NFC 101, we will teach our readers how to automate tasks using NFC tags and their Android device. The whole process is much easier than you would think and only requires you to have some NFC tags at your disposal. Using the below guide, you can automate many day-to-day tasks using NFC tags. While the below app and guide should be more than enough for general users, advanced users can also use Tasker to create custom scripts and write them to an NFC tag.
Head over to the Play Store and download Trigger. The app is like a dumbed down Tasker that allows you to perform certain tasks when a certain trigger occurs.
By default, Trigger already provides you with a few set of tasks. If you like any of them, simply tap on them to configure them with the relevant details. You can also create custom tasks from the My Tasks section. However, for our purpose, you only need to select NFC as the trigger.
Proceed to the next step where you can setup any task you want by using the + button on the top. You can create a single task for multiple actions like switching on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth at once, turning down the Media volume and more. Make sure to give the task a relevant name so that you can understand its function easily.
In the last step, you can setup Switch which acts as an opposite/toggle task to your primary task. This way you can write a single task to an NFC tag to switch on Wi-Fi and when you tap on it again, Wi-Fi would turn off.
Finally, tap the NFC tag to the back of the handset so that Trigger can write the task to it. If, for some reason, you want to make the tag non-erasable or writable again, simply tap the Settings button on the top right and select the Make tag read-only option. If you are already using NFC tags to automate tasks, do drop in a comment and share them with us!
