You may be aware of my position within the Sony Mobile Test Lab, a group of regular consumers invited by Sony to participate in product trials and provide honest feedback.
I recently got talking to a fellow test-labber, Simon Tompkins, about getting him in as a guest blogger. I asked Simon if he would provide his experiences of Sony's implementation of NFC, and here is the end result. A fantastic account of one mans experiences, and I hope you'll agree.One thing Sony seems to be pushing more than any other manufacturer lately is NFC, which stands for Near Field Communication.
For anyone who hasn't heard of NFC before probably will in the near future. It is a new way for smart phones to share low amounts of information very easily, quickly and with just one touch.
This feature is already being used by most high end Android phones to share photos, playlists, pay for small amounts of items in a shop which supports NFC financial transactions and playing music through NFC speakers from your phone. As you can begin to see, NFC is making high and loud promises for the future.
I've had the Sony Xperia P, one of Sony's 2012 NFC sporting phones, for about 4-6 months now. To start with I really didn't see much use in having it, as the most exiting feature of NFC for me was being able to pay for items quickly through Google Wallet. Unfortunately Google Wallet isn't yet supported here in the UK with no official news on when to expect it, and those payment options that do exist here are found sparely across major chains and cities only.
Not only that but very few people have phones which use NFC either so I was still having to share photos and such the old fashioned way...the Apple way.
Sony have released a lot of accessories which have caught my interest and have encouraged me to get off the couch start figuring it all out, mainly the smart tags and the NFC sphere speakers.
It's not an overly complicated concept, but like any new technology even the simple kind can prove a challenge to those new to it, so I decided to share my experiences with you to help out with the transition.
My Xperia P comes with a couple of "NFC Smart Tags". This innovation is courtesy of Sony and are a pretty cool accessory. They store a small 'identity' which when scanned by a correctly configured phone can automatically trigger a series of events all at once in without having to painstakingly do it all by yourself.
The idea is to put them in places like your front door for instance, where a tag may trigger a profile to disable your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, saving your battery life for the day ahead. Additionally you might with to include events so that at the time of scanning the tag, the phone reads out the time and weather forecast. You may even wish to split these commands across different tags, and include the time and weather commands at the point of waking up and scanning a tag on your bedside.
You could even scan a bedside tag to set your phone to silent, set the alarm for the next morning and post a good night message on your Facebook timeline.
My first experience with doing this was simple enough. I decided where I wanted my two smart tags and placed them by the back door and my bedside. I hung the tags accordingly and programmed the commands I wanted.
To give you an idea of what the tags can do and what they're all about, I'll show you the commands I recorded in both tags.
BEDSIDE TAG Do this: Wi-Fi off, Bluetooth off, Sound silent, Start application alarm clock, Speak current time, volume settings applied (alarm turns up, everything else turned down) and a goodnight post to my friends on Facebook (very cool!).At the end: Wi-Fi on, Bluetooth off, Sound mode normal, Post a good morning facebook message (its for testing purposes, honest!), speak the current time, volume settings readjusted, open google news and start the Facebook application.
BACK DOOR TAG Do this: Wi-Fi off, Bluetooth off, sound mode loud, start news and weather app, speak current time.At the end: Wi-Fi toggle, speak the current time, sound mode adjusted to lower setting.
The problem This is where I stumbled across my first problem. The 'Do this' option means when I scan the NFC tag to my phone, it does exactly as I command. This works fine. Its quick, easy and responsive.
When I programmed 'at the end' however, I had assumed this meant when I returned and scanned the phone a second time, that it would apply these settings. No matter how many times I scan the NFC tag is seems to continuously apply the 'Do this' settings.
This leads me to wonder why an 'at the end' option present. Is there a timer to apply these settings at the end of which, that I'm supposed to configure? Do these settings make the 'Do this' settings a temporary configuration until the 'at the end' configuration kicks in?
Like I say, the concept is a great one, however as simple as it is, it seems to have been overcomplicated, much more so than it needs to be, by the process required to configure the commands. Even just renaming the event options to 'scan once' and scan twice' would have made for a much more clear and understandable setup.
I've also noticed the need to unlock your phone to scan with NFC (though there might be a setting for this which I'm yet to find), meaning I need to press the button on the side with my thumb before swiping to unlock my phone. Finally at this point, I can scan my NFC tag. This may take just seconds to do, but it's a fiddly process and just isn't the same experience shown on the adverts. It's far from a one touch experience.
The good parts By pairing the smart tags with the NFC sphere speakers, I could really imagine this being a cool party trick. Walking in and tapping my phone on the speakers, having it instantly playing my music wirelessly.
Pretty cool, especially paired with Music Unlimited which has a huge library of music. Who doesn't want to be the guy with all the tunes in the world?
The following video shows just how easy it is to play music on the NFC speakers, without an exhaustive amount of setting up before hand.
Here is a guying showing you how to use the NFC speakers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKgk69mbMeM
Its a really cool idea, and one that I can't wait to start using more as the technology becomes more widespread, especially as the accessories are rolled out.
I do have a few friends with NFC phones but don't see them often enough, and certainly don't trade playlists or photos with them. Doing so would be more for the sake of it, rather than something I actually need.
Once the technology becomes more available then I can really see myself making the most of it. For now, its a novelty with a lot of potential...
Update 12/11/12
I have been having some fun with the NFC tags. I have set up a command to my NFC tag to post a good night message to my friends on Facebook when I scan my bed time tag before I go to sleep. I thought I would use Rik Mayals good night speech from the 90's BBC series "Bottom". Again this is just novelty which proves no real useful purpose for day to day life but fits in well with Sonys light hearted fun time image which they try very hard to portray in their marketing and adverts. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsz87hpzk-c) (7:16)
Update 14/11/12
I suppose it was inevitable that using NFC would take some getting used to. I keep forgetting to scan my phone before bed and therefore leaving my sound turned up which is quite annoying because of those late night texts or calls. Not to mention that it leaves my wifi and bluetooth on (which isnt too much of an issue as its on charge).Also my Facebook friends are clearly missing my goodnight NFC message too!
I am remembering to scan my phone when I leave the house, but since I leave through the back AND front door depending on what I am doing I sometimes have to walk across the house to scan my phone to put it on the settings I like before I leave. Which to me is more of a hassle than changing the phones settings the old fashioned way. Also, since NFC doesnt have a second scan settings ability I feel like I need two NFC tags for everyplace I originally thought id only need one.
For example, if I leave the house then I need certain phone settings for being in the outdoors (wifi off, loud ring tone etc) but when I get back home I am unable to scan the same tag again for indoor settings. So I need a whole new tag for that as when I scan the tag a second time it just readds the same settings I wanted for when I left the house. Now duplicate that for every exit in the house.
The tags arent expensive but is seems like a bit of a complicated mess. Its also a hassle to have to spend another ten pounds plus delivery on another three tags to do something I though the tags could do in the first place.
17/11/2012
I have decided to take my NFC tag out of my car and put it with the one next to my bed. This way I have a tag to set my phone before bed and a tag to set my phone for the morning. Its a shame I need two tags for this rather than one but I think I will benefit from this a lot more. I have wanted to try this for a few days now so I can use the "open URL" option. I am going to select Google News and Facebook so my news and Facebook news feed are ready to view when I get up in the morning. I will also use it to turn on my wifi, turn my sound back on, speak the current time and perhaps add another annoying automated message on Facebook for the morning.
Lets see how this works out..
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