Arduino NFC development
The Arduino platform consists out of a central developer environment with several developer boards and allows for quick and easy development of circuits. These circuits are for example used in smart home applications. NFC also plays an important role in smart home applications because NFC tags can trigger certain actions.
NFC Shield for Arduino
Adafruit offers a controller shield based on the NXP PN532 which extends the Arduino with NFC functions. This shield can also be inserted into the Raspberry or Galileo, so it is definitely a versatile choice. The NFC shield is able to read and write NFC tags. As it is a typical smart home application reading of NFC tags is a very interesting function to include in an Arduino project.
Typically, content on NFC tags is stored in the standard NDEF format (learn more details here) which allows to process information much easier. Therefore, it is very practical that a NDEF library for the NFC shield already exists. This library allows for reading and processing NDEF messages on NFC tags. When this library is included in an Arduino project it can be used to trigger an action if a tag with a specific content type is put on the Arduino.
Summarized the following things are necessary to get started with developing Arduino NFC applications:
- NFC shield to extend the Arduino with NFC functionalities for example the aforementioned shield from Adafruit.
- NFC tags with standard NDEF content types. All NFC tags with NTAG 213, 215 or 216 chip in our shop comply with the NDEF standard.
- NDEF library which is included in the Arduino sketch to allow processing NDEF messages on NFC tags.