The enhanced jewelry will unlock doors, transfer data, link people, and communicate with other devices.
Even NFC technology becomes more widely recognized, the majority of people have yet to work it into their everyday activities either because their own smartphones are not enabled or they simply don’t see the benefit.
This is, in part because the tech has experienced a broad struggle in becoming a part of the mainstream.
However, a man named Jon McLear is betting that the use of an NFC technology enabled ring will be all that is needed to show the world some of the amazing things that near field communication can do, so that it will burst into mainstream common use. Some examples include unlocking phones and doors, among other things.
The NFC technology ring project was started by McLear through the use of Kickstarter.
At the time of the writing of this article, McLear had already doubled his goal of £30,000, having received over £61,700 through the donations of more than 2,200 backers. As the funding opportunity closes on August 19, this clearly indicates that there will be many more funds to come and that the mastermind behind this project will have much more than he anticipated needing in order to bring this device to the market.
The NFC technology enabled ring will never require charging despite the fact that it simply needs to be worn on the finger and can be used for many different purposes, including data transfers (for example, WiFi information, website links, contact information, or other custom info) or being applied as a high tech house key.
This tiny NFC technology based device is bringing wearable mobile tech to an entirely new level. In order to use it with a reader – such as a smartphone with a near field communication chip or a door lock reader – the hand wearing the ring simply needs to be waved in very close proximity. The Android phone capabilities will be available through a free third party app called NFC Ring (developed by John McLear), and the door locks will be similar to the Lockitron security systems.
The contactless tech took a big hit when the global retail giant declared it not to be worthwhile.
Tesco, a supermarket giant, has been making some heads spin with its latest announcement that it feels that NFC technology doesn’t have any real value, when speaking at a recent conference.
Many in the industry felt that near field communication is the next up and coming thing.
That said, they may be thinking twice about NFC technology now that the Tesco, a company based in the United Kingdom, gave such a poor assessment of it. The mobile payments industry had been under the impression that this could be the technology that would be used in order to accelerate the drive toward a cashless society.
NFC technology allows information – such as payment transactions – to be exchanged between two devices.
It works by holding the two devices close to one another, or tapping them together. The use of NFC technology also includes a security chip to make sure that data remains encrypted and cannot be read by the wrong recipient. It has been promising to become the best way to offer a range of different mobile wallet services, such as for payments, ticketing, and other similar purposes.
Many industry giants have been banking on NFC technology, including Google Wallet and Isis. However, Tesco says that this isn’t quite what it has been chocked up to be. In fact, it was suggested that it has actually come and gone, and that it won’t be progressing beyond what it has already achieved.
The company has no plans to implement the near field communications and feels that any attempt to try to use NFC technology would simply complicate things. They cannot see that it will take off in any realistic way.
In its statement at the conference, it drew attention to the fact that contactless credit cards already exist, so using mobile NFC technology based payments would not be adding any level of value. Moreover, it suggested that it would not provide any beneficial consumer experience and would simply add complexity to the checkout process. This is in direct opposition to much of the mobile payments industry that is continuing to drive forward with this tech.
