By Claire Reilly
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity have greatly expanded the potential of our mobile devices, from transferring contacts, streaming music or pushing video content from the palm of our hands to the big screen.
But while establishing these connections can be a matter of fiddling with settings, entering passwords and remembering obscure device names, one technology is infiltrating the tech space to simplify this process: Near Field Communication, or NFC.
The major suppliers are unlocking the potential of this technology, including Sony, which spruiks NFC with its own ‘One Touch’ branding, now seen across everything from clock radios and headphones to digital cameras and TVs.
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Paul Colley, Sony Australia’s group manager of network services and technology says NFC represents a real opportunity to “make connectivity easy” for consumers.
“Everyone gets sick of plugging in cables or putting in pin codes — it can get too hard,” he said. “Even charging is something we would rather not have to do with a cable, so I think that wireless approach is going to become more expected.
“Wireless connectivity…also gives you freedom of choice, so you can go from one brand to another without worrying about compatibility.”
Colley concedes that people have been able push content from their phone to their TV for some time now, “but no one ever does it because it’s too complicated and too difficult”. However, “if you can make it simple, people will start doing it”. This is where NFC comes in — while not a data transfer protocol in and of itself, it’s the “trigger” that allows an easy connection to be made.
Sony is attempting to simplify things with NFC Easy Connect, a free app that tells an Android smartphone “what Sony device it’s being touched to, so it knows what features to turn on and off” making for an easier connection. By downloading an app such as this, users can simply touch their smartphone or tablet to an NFC-enabled device, and all the fiddly work is done in the background.
But while it’s remarkably simple, Colley said retail demonstration was “critical” to helping consumers understand the concept.
“It’s important to make sure that customers know what phones are compatible,” he said. “While we want people to embrace the Sony phones, really the way to make this relate best to the customer is if you can make it work on their own phone.”
