I had to preform a factory reset on my phone. When I did and lost all my settings the list of trusted tags that was stored was lost.
What was explained to me is that if you still have trusted tags set up in your device then it should still be working just like it did. They have removed the ability to add NFC as a trusted device. Once the tags are removed they can’t be added back.
On either of my devices all I have is Bluetooth as an option for trusted devices.
So if your NFC Smart Unlock is working do not remove your stored tags because you can’t add them back to the system.
I wish I had a device that was working and had tags stored in it so I could test this. I’m going to a lil mobile store today to dig through their trade-in box. My hope is to find a phone that hasnt been updated to do some testing with it.
A member of the RFID Implantees Facebook group actually talked to Google Support about it and it seems the problem is a bug, not by design… so maybe there is hope it will be fixed.
That would be great. Until then I guess its back to a rooted phone and custom Rom. Not that that’s so bad it just a pain to maintain and it has its share of issues.
Well so we wait and hope for a good solution while saying a quiet prayer to the gods of Google.
I don’t know… I’m disappointed for sure.
Roms are a great option for the people who can do that to their phones. Some don’t have the skills, others have phones not capable of being rooted, and some just don’t want to change their phones.
We need a solution that everyone can implement. I know that the NFC rings have a companion app that allows them to unlock the phone. I’m not familiar with how the rings and app work together to this make it happen or if normal NFC tags are capable of being paired in the same way.
Their app is proprietary to the Rings this much I know.
…Would an app even be a possibility for regular tags?
This works on some platforms. I’m going a mobile phone repair shop/store this week where they let me tinker with phones to test this app on as many phones as I can.
not in any safe or secure way. google removed the NFC channel from SmartLock a long time ago, and anything else you find on the appstore is just a “hide and seek” game played with an app window that simply wants to “stay on top” of everything else until you unlock it… but it’s not a locked. all the security built into android is totally turned off with those apps so its really not worth it.
the only way to make it really work would be to root your phone and install an older ROM with nfc enabled smartlock still working…
Hey, I’ve followed your guide but smart lock still is nowhere to be seen. Under trusted agents I have smart lock enabled, but it’s nowhere in the settings. I know it’s an old post, but has it just stopped working altogether?
Google stopped supporting NFC unlock a few years ago because they didn’t think there were enough users to continue devoting dev resources to maintaining it.
The Xposed framework NFC unlock is no longer available either as far as I know
Seems to be the case unfortunately, NFC unlock is long abandoned. Even the xposed module seems to be abandoned for some time so I doubt it would work without rebuilding it. Not aware of any custom ROMs that offer NFC unlocking either. Seems like the popularity/convenience of face/fingerprint unlock killed out any work being done towards preserving NFC unlock as an option, even within rooting communities.
Well, that’s depressing. If you search the web you get all those articles on nfc unlock via smart lock and I bought a nfc ring for like a dollar because most times I can’t unlock the phone with the fingerprint (dirty hands or gloves) and face recognition is weird and uncomfortable to hold the phone straight at your face . Any other ideas on how to use my nfc ring besides as paperweight or a normal ring?
In regards to your phone, perhaps either use it as a businesses card or link sharing (write a vcard or a link to it, you can get pretty creative with it). You could also automate things on your phone using tasker or other services with the NFC ring being the trigger.
Lastly, there are plenty of projects on here where people have used their implants to do stuff like starting motorcycles, opening garage doors, household automation such as lights and much more. I’d recommend browsing around and see what peeks your interest, you should be able to use your ring for a lot of that instead of a chip fairly easily.
Sucks unlocking wasn’t kept in android but even a simple NFC ring is far from a paperweight. Best of luck!
Just to clarify my hunch as to why Smart Lock removed NFC support… I think it has to do with smart unlock needing to operate NFC while the phone is locked. This interferes directly with Google pay features which need to operate while the phone is locked. I think it’s pretty clear that between these two applications for NFC, Google is going to choose Google pay over smart unlock.
Many thanks for your suggestions, I’m sorry I felt like a bummer and an ungrateful person when I called nfc rings paperweight. It was just 4am frustration because I rooted my phone following guides on how to enable nfc unlock and, to my fault for not enough research, was for nothing. I appreciate your suggestions. I might get a nfc reader to unlock my pc. I’m studying computer science and I should be able to maneuver around windows better than on Android. Never thought about getting an implant though, do they cause any trouble if, for example, you need to have an xray/mri done?
Fortunately I don’t need insurance in my country as healthcare is free (obviously if you go in there just to ask if you can flex your implant with an x-ray you’ll get kicked out). You’re right though I should’ve just searched the forum. I realized later it was more complex than a yes/no answer. I honestly didn’t put that much research into nfc, I just wanted an alternative way to unlock my phone. NFC Tools says my tag type is NXP Mifare Ultralight C. I don’t know what that says about frequencies. From the nxp site I can see it operates at 13.56 MHz. The memory is really small though, about 137 bytes. I guess if I want to write more than a single task I’ve got to buy something a little more high quality. For now I’m using it to turn bluetooth on and off lol
if you are not yet ready for an implant, this is a good option
or this one, but currently out of stock
This one would be the better option for contact sharing, but the first one has a changeable (N)UID and you can use it for contact sharing but there is a caveat with that…
