I’m not sure this is 100% possible, but as we have a wear version of HA, it would be amazing if we could trigger NFC tags via a smart watch instead of having to use our phone to trigger.
NFC is there on the watch(es), but from what I’ve read, there are restrictions around NFC on wearables.
That said, I did read someone’s claim that they’d created a custom app on Android’s WearOS that allowed them to do this. They were asked to share it on GitHub, but then nothing… so I’m not sure if they were being 100% honest.
However it would be amazing if this was available.
If you use them a lot as practical low-maintenance buttons then not having to dig out and unlock your phone every time would be hugely convenient.
WearOS is able to communicate with an NFC tap to multiple types of equipment in a gym.
That may be limited to the Samsung fitness app using WearOS atm and mapped to specific gym equipment manufacturers, but it does show that it has the ability to do more than payments.
Apple watch also has the same functionality to NFC with gym equipment as well as payments.
I have NFC stickers on all my doors and garage door. I have to unlock my phone to tap it… at that point I might as well key in the code to open the door. If someone is behind me watching, I can unlock my phone (face recognition) and tap so they won’t see my code… Anyhow, tapping my Wear OS Samsung Smart Watch would be faster and cooler… I hope it is feasible!
For the Apple watch I think the only way would be to use the Wallet app. Passkit allows for IDs, so stuff like hotel door opening is possible, and creating a pass to be added to wallet is not utterly difficult - also there are ways to trigger passes for certain locations (playing around with PassSlot / Pass2U confirms this).
However, there is a trick as Apple needs to provide an NFC signing certificate (bound to developer program), and the passes need to be signed with that, before sent/accepted into Wallet.
I think this is the first time I’ve been let down thinking I could do something with HA… like… wow… I just bought a smart watch mainly because it said NFC… ha… yeah, there is an NFC tag in it but that’s it…
I read about the TicWatch that can read NFC tags… but… just shocked… this isn’t already something we have hundreds of posts about as… who wants to take their phone out every time to scan a tag?
does anyone know how the state is now - in jun 2023?
As i understood it earlier it is no easy match to scan NFC tags with a watch. Most watches work simply as tag and not as reader - that means that it is possible to use the watch only with readers who deliver the energy for reading. This means it is verry clear that a payment system work with the watch - a payment system can be used with a lot of devices like creditcards that doen´t have a battery. Even in the fitnessudios i know i get a token if i do not have any smart devices - with means that they have fully qualified readers and not only tokens…
Their where rumors saying that watches that can work as fully qualified readers (like mobile phone) are under development - especially tic-watch is named frequently. But i didn´t find any real news.
Having the possible to read NFC tags with a watch is for me a “killing feature”. It should be so much more comfort in a lot of usecases…
Watches can emulate (act as a tag) a really small subset of RFID/NFC (e.g. EMV which is used in credit/bank cards, or sometimes Mifare Cards which could be used in places like gyms)
Phones can usually read (still a small subset) and emulate RFID/NFC. I haven’t looked at watches specifically, my Garmin Fenix has payment enabled, no reader though and unless there are apps, there seems to be no way to get any tag (other than the credit cards) onto that watch to emulate them.
So to evaluate if smartwatches can be used with HomeAssistant using NFC one must clarify a few things:
do I need to emulate a tag
HA would have a reader where I tap my tag/watch/phone in order to have HA do something (I think there is a music player example on the homepage that works like that)
do I need to read a tag
That’s a completely different setup and would work like the “check-in” boxes of security personnel on public grounds. There would be tags/stickers in public places that only contain some sort if identifier. You’d then tap your reader (watch/phone) against it and have that trigger your HA companion app to do something. I did something like that using iOS Shortcuts that fire triggers using iOS App Link URLs. Those Shortcuts again are triggered by NFC. That allows me to trigger some HA action without having to confirm anything on the display.
So to continue, in the first case any watch that is able to emulate some sort of tag where at least the UID stays the same (haven’t looked close enough on EMV if that might suffice - Mifare would certainly work). I read about Mi Bands that can be programmed to emulate Mifare Tags.
If you’d require the second case it get’s more complicated, in an iOS/watch setup I’d have a look at the shortcuts and see if the watch might be able to “react” to tags. In that case you can again take any NEF or Mifare tag and just create a shortcut/automation that triggers the HA Companion App
Hi, some more news about this? Seems only possible to use transit & debit cards to Google Wallet on wear os… is there a workaround for it? maybe in combination with HA?
So I did some good reading, both on google devs and general forums, it seemed to be a software non-implementation on wearOS and a hardware thing on a few others. Then I came across this
I’ll have to go though the code, but from what I understand the card and later the galaxy watch are acting as passive NFC tags that the car reads and unlocks? What say?
thats indeed cool, what i understand , its not possible to sync ‘nfc tag cards’ from the google wallet on android to wear os, i think its a limitation on the wallet app on wear os itself
what can work i think is to developen an app on wear os, like it should be possible with HA app to send nfc signals
i think we need @dshokouhi help here, it should be possible that HA companion can act as a “NFC tag” itself , not for reading, but for sending to a terminal?
Are there any news on this? it would be really cool if we could scan NFC tags with our smart watches and it would create a lot of possibilities for automations. Do we know if the current limitation to achieve this is hardware (i.e. watch not having the required NFC reader) or software (i.e. Home Assistant not able to use the NFC reader from the watch)?
I never understood why someone would be mad being tagged on a post. Like… someone is tagging you because they think you can provide valuable help or that you know something that others don’t.
I personally would be honoured to be tagged on things I know about.
Again, I never understood the fuss about it. People are strange…
