NFC Sticker/Tag Encoding

So here is my basic motivation for my question obfuscated a little:

I want to track a users loyalty to a particular store. Each store would have a NFC sticker on the register. On purchase the user would use an app on their phone (NFC available of course) and the s开发者_开发问答ticker would send back some code that designates the store.

Now here is my question, one, can I send a simple code back to my application that is then, for example, added to some database? This link, near the bottom, provides a description of 'Content Options' none of which I want. Also, the NFC-Forum specifications don't tell me much (or I'm just not looking in the right place).

Also, how do I actually put this tag/code onto one of these stickers? If I do it myself can I make them read-only?

you can put arbitrary information on the NFC tag - there is no limitation what you can upload and in which format. Think about NFC tags like if they were normal data storage places like e.g. hardrive or CD - to those you can save to them files with arbitrarty format holding the arbitrary content. Same with NFC tags.

Anyway there is recommended NFC Forum standard for the content format called NDEF (NFC Forum Data Exchange Format is a lightweight binary message format designed to encapsulate one or more application-defined payloads into a single message construct.)

Also for specific data (links, Phone number, calendar event, etc.) there is another recommended NFC Forum standard called RTD (Record Type Definition specifies the format and rules for building standard record types used by NFC Forum application definitions and third parties that are based on the NDEF data format).

So in fact you can use arbitrary data format or NDEF, for the data itself you can follow RTD recommendations or not... It is up to you.

For tag writing you can buy some existing software and USB NFC reader/writer or you can program your own software - this is more difficult, since you must know HW characteristic of tag you would like to use.

All tags allow permanent data locking.

Regards, STeN

www.mautilus.com, petr.mazanec@mautilus.com

For Android devices, you would create a tag with an so-called Android Application Record (AAR). The AAR contains the package name of your application, and, using a technology called Beam, Android automatically launches your application. You are then free to access the other records contained within the NDEF message, which then probably would contain the id of the shop somehow, and contact your site.

I have tried AAR already and it works, also I have created an NFC Eclipse plugin which would get you up and running in no time, if you have an Android phone and some tag, of course ;-)