So it looks like the new Pixel 11 and the S26 are putting the NFC antenna up at the top of the device. I know that I use one of my implants as a fun bar trick to send people to my site after they scan it. However I have always been plagued with the fact that it is absolutely ass getting the iphone to scan my implants.
I’m in the market to get a new phone I was thinking of a pixel because graphene seems like a fun transition to play with however the last thing I need is for my phone to be flaky when it comes to scanning my implants like the apex that I use every day.
Do you guys have input on this? I have a bunch of repeater stickers but I don’t know how effective they are placed at the top of the phone.
I have! for some reason though even with direct contact in the implant sometimes iphones just are a lot harder to scan historically than with my s23 ultra. With my ultra I juts need my hand close to the phone with an iphone 16 that I just tested I needed to hold the implant just like the video shows for about 10-15 seconds before it scanned. Probably a slower NFC “heartbeat” We have tried in the past with our field detector and saw the intervals were much longer.
I guess my take is wanting to have a dead reliable way to use my NFC on these new phones but all the ones I’ve seen are in demo mode and NFC doesn’t seem to scan anything at all. Trying to gather input before dropping serious money on it.
Does anyone have any photos of the repeater stickers on a case for iphone or these new phones that have the antenna at the top of the phone? I usually use beefy cases and those stickers are great, but I wonder how great they are at the top.
The rumors are true. Nfc antenna is at the top middle of the phone.
It’s actually quite good though. I have however added a repeater sticker to it. It’s in a very odd way too. It’s in the outside of the case, it goes up around the edge and then over the front of the case and the phone wedges it in.
It works well enough to light both my nextV2 and my xsiid at the same time. Pics in morning
Antenna position matters less than coupling geometry, in my experience. A top-edge coil on a phone actually reads a hand implant fine as long as you present the implant edge-on to the top of the phone instead of laying the back flat against your hand - the field there wraps around the top edge, so you want the implant roughly parallel with that edge and about 5-10 mm off it, then rock slowly rather than sliding. Most “flaky” reads I have seen were people sweeping too fast across a null.
On the repeater stickers: they work by inductive relay, so they only help if the sticker’s coil overlaps the phone’s coil. If you stick one centred on the back of a phone whose antenna is now at the top, you have detuned more than you have gained. Move the sticker up so it sits over the actual antenna footprint, and expect thick cases to cost you a few mm of range on top of that. Worth taping one in place and testing before committing adhesive.
If you want to compare candidate phones before buying, a diagnostic app that shows raw polling and read timing is more useful than a demo unit in a shop - a phone stuck in demo mode usually has NFC disabled entirely, so that tells you nothing about its real performance.
