So, the spark I have had implanted has brought me great joy.
The app scans the chip fast, but when I try to scan it without the app it does not want to scan.
I have a Huawei p20 pro, have spoken to the company support about nfc reader location on the phone. So there must be something I am doing wrong, but have also seen the other posts about phones not scanning chips.
Are there any Android settings that I should change, how do I make sure the nfc reader in the phone is not in standby mode? The case is not a problem for the app, but it doesn’t work scanning the chip on or off.
I do, it takes very long to be recogised. It works, but it takes forever for the phone to find it. Don’t think I implanted deep however, I can see it under my skin. I am researching online to troubleshoot.
Did your phone successfully read the Spark without the VivoKey app installed before, and does not any longer?
My impression is that the Spark cannot be scanned like a normal tag, without an app configured to read it, because it is an ISO15693 tag with read-only NDEF records that allow it to access the VivoKey platform. It’s not like the other ISO14443a compliant chips. Here’s a post detailing some of its properties (might be slightly outdated, since it’s from February):
Actually it can. It’s a fully NFC Type 5 compliant chip. We designed it to be scannable by any phone. What it does when scanned depends on how the chip scan behavior is configured on the platform, and to set that you need the VivoKey app… but the chip should scan with no specific apps loaded or operating on the phone.
It’s more likely the issue Android has introduced that has been affecting reading of NFC Type 5 chips. I have the same random lack of reading happening across tons of phones for any ISO15693 chip based tags, including the VivoKey demo cards.
IT IS… I do have a contact within Google who has escalated it to some others internally and they are kinda sorta working on it, but because almost nobody is using ISO15693 chips yet with phones, the bug is kinda low priority for Google. It’s so bad that I’m working on a Spark 2 based on an ISO14443A chip instead, because we really can’t expect Google to fix it any time soon. Ironic that this happened around the same time Apple decided to open up the iPhone’s NFC interface… I hate to say it, but iPhone reads x-series chip extremely well, including Spark.
Absolutely! We will never abandon any VivoKey products! The Spark 1 will continue to be supported for at least the next 30 or so years, or less if a security vulnerability is found in the chip itself (rare, but sometimes happens) in which case we would offer a free upgrade to the latest version of the Spark or Spark-like product.
I’m actually a bit worried now that I’ll implant mine and it won’t be able to be read. My spark should be coming in 2 days and I’m buying an S10 today since my phone stopped working.
For most people it’s not that the Spark won’t read at all, but that it will read only after many failed attempts… meaning you hear the NFC reading noise… maybe see an on-screen indication that it’s reading… then nothing… or in the case of the VivoKey app, you get a red ring and “NFC Error”… but just keep trying, it will read eventually.
Trust me I’m super pissed off about this… but the best thing that can happen is happening… which is that a Google engineer is looking into it.