Shared bikes have taken notice! Is NFC going to be popular?

On August 22, ofo announced that it had successfully developed a new smart lock that supports NFC (Near Field Communication) payment function, which will be launched on the market in October. This means that in the future, users will no longer need to scan QR codes. They can just bring their NFC-enabled mobile phones or other smart hardware close to the lock to open the bike in seconds.

Before the media could get excited about this news, Mobike also announced that the smart lock with NFC function developed by it and Samsung has been mass-produced and will be launched in mid-September. Being chosen by two shared bike companies with "self-contained traffic", NFC has naturally become a hot word on everyone's lips during this period.

Figure 1: Shared bicycles have launched smart locks that support NFC payment functions.

In fact, NFC is indeed very popular recently. Not long ago, Beijing Metro just announced that it would support mobile phone NFC payment on all lines, which laid a good landing scenario for NFC payment.

In June this year, Apple also announced at WWDC that it will open the NFC function in the latest iOS 11, allowing developers to read more types of NFC tags and develop more applications based on the new CoreNFC framework.

It can be felt that from the technical end to the application end, the entire NFC industry is "ready to move". No wonder some industry insiders assert that the NFC market has entered a new round of explosive growth.

In the field of mobile payment, QR code still has an absolute advantage, and the share of NFC payment is almost negligible. However, NFC payment has some inherent advantages that are enough to crush QR code and cannot be underestimated. We can still use the smart lock of shared bicycles as an example to illustrate.

First, in terms of data transmission efficiency, NFC has an absolute advantage. When a mobile phone touches a smart car lock, it will directly exchange offline data information with the car lock without going through the "long" path of car lock-cloud-mobile phone. This "de-serverization" model has a much higher efficiency and "volume" of data transmission than QR codes.

Secondly, in terms of security, NFC communication has two-way authentication, data encryption and other means, which can achieve financial-level security. At the same time, the NFC module built into the car lock is not as vulnerable to "attacks" such as pasting, replacement, and damage as QR codes, which can better protect the safety of users.

Third, in terms of power consumption , in the unlocking application stage, since the NFC module can obtain energy from the radio frequency field of the communication initiator (mobile phone), the energy of the smart lock itself is not consumed during the communication process ; and in the unlocking command stage, since the QR code method must inevitably be carried out through the cloud server, the communication energy consumption between the cloud and the smart lock will be significantly higher than the offline unlocking method through NFC. Therefore, NFC can also win in terms of power consumption.

Finally, in terms of user experience , the QR code payment process of "unlock the screen, open the app, click to scan the code, and wait for communication" is obviously too low in front of the " touch and go " NFC! This is also the most important plus point when people evaluate the value of NFC.

Of course, the advantages of QR code payment, such as simple deployment and low cost, are still unmatched by NFC payment, and the high market share of QR code payment is even more difficult for NFC payment to surpass in the short term. Therefore, the most important task for NFC payment is to start from some specific application scenarios, such as swiping cards in public transportation, which is more sensitive to the real-time nature of payment.

Moreover, from a broader perspective, payment is not the only market fulcrum of NFC. NFC's diverse communication modes (read-write mode, peer-to-peer mode, card emulation mode), as well as its secure and timely data exchange capabilities, have made its application scenarios more diverse. Some typical applications of NFC include:

• Access control : NFC-based "door access" systems are more secure, convenient for flexible remote management, and have lower maintenance costs than traditional systems such as keys and ID cards.

• Pairing and debugging : Bringing two NFC devices close together can complete the pairing connection, and can also trigger communication protocols such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, Wi-Fi, etc., making it more convenient to access future smart homes or other IoT devices.

• Identity verification and anti-counterfeiting : Merchants can use NFC to quickly identify users and provide personalized preferences. At the same time, NFC can also be used as a product traceability technology, taking product anti-counterfeiting to a higher level.

• Device expansion interface and communication : A new way of communication and data interaction between devices (especially closed devices), which is convenient and flexible.

Figure 2: NFC has a wide range of applications beyond mobile payments. The picture shows Wuliangye's upgraded NFC anti-counterfeiting label

In fact, NFC has been developed for many years, and many powerful players, such as China Mobile, have also devoted a lot of attention to NFC, but the market performance of NFC has always been lukewarm. The reason for this, in addition to the problem of technical maturity, is largely because the "cooking time" is not yet right.

With the rise of the Internet of Things, as people become more and more aware of the value behind these connected devices and the data exchanged between them, and as the supporting ecological environment is improved, NFC, as a new data communication carrier, has finally been pushed to the forefront.

According to ABI Research, the global shipment of NFC-enabled products will exceed 2 billion in 2018 and reach 3 billion by 2021, when the total number of NFC products worldwide will exceed 14 billion. After years of development, NFC technology has finally become a "veteran" and it is time for it to become popular.

Figure 3, Global NFC product annual shipments and cumulative shipments (unit: million units)