NFC just got a serious range boost, and your next smartwatch is going to love it
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR The new NFC Release 15 specification increases range from 5mm to up to 2cm, making alignment less critical to initiating a compliant connection.
This extended range will make NFC connections quicker and more reliable in the future, especially for smaller devices like smart watches and smart rings.
It also introduces support for the NFC Digital Product Passport (NDPP), allowing phones to serve as payment terminals.
Unless you're picking up something in the extreme budget range, most Android phones come with NFC these days. NFC, short for Near Field Communication, is handy for contactless payments and other short-range proximity-based use cases. This short-range is getting an upgrade with the NFC Forum's latest NFC Release 15 specification.
The highlight of this NFC Release 15 specification is its extended range for certified compliant NFC contactless connections, going from the current 5mm to up to 2cm, which is a 4x increase. This may seem like a tiny change, but this extended range means that NFC chips on devices needn't be as precisely aligned as they currently need to be. This would allow NFC connections to start sooner, making the process quicker and more reliable, especially on smaller form factor devices like smartwatches and smart rings.
The range is still very short, and you still need a fair amount of user intent to initiate a connection. Still, you needn't awkwardly dance your wrist around on the payment terminal to make a payment, as both devices will have a wider acceptable area for the connection handshake.
Wait, but aren't there devices already operating at 2cm distance? Yes, there are, and this spec release creates a standard for more of them to come up, ensuring they continue to play nice with each other.
Oliver Cragg / Android Authority
Another highlight is the support for the NFC Digital Product Passport (NDPP) standard, which allows you to use your mobile phone as a payment terminal instead of requiring a dedicated device. More technically, the standard includes a data-agnostic framework that allows a single NFC tag embedded in a product to store and transmit both standard and extended DPP data using common NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) records.
NFC Release 15 will be made available to adopter-level members and the public sometime in Fall 2025, and the certification compliance process will also begin then. Higher-level NFC Forum members can already download the Technical Specifications for this NFC Release 15. As you can imagine, products compatible with the specification will take a while to reach the market, but I am optimistic about the future.
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