I was experimenting with the ‘NFC Tools’ app on my Samsung phone and came across the task automation menu. It immediately caught my interest, and I started testing different uses—like scanning an NFC tag to automatically open Spotify and start playing music.
However, I was disappointed to find that my phone’s NFC reader only works when the device is unlocked and the screen is on. This limits its usability for quick, seamless interactions (for lazy people like me). I know it’s only a couple seconds extra to unlock it, but it would be so great to read tags whilst the phone is off…
I was wondering—has anyone managed to get their phone’s NFC reader to function while:
The screen is on but the phone is still locked?
The phone is completely off?
Any insights, workarounds, or device-specific tricks would be greatly appreciated.
You will have to find a rooted alternative OS in order to enable this. Android used to do allow you to use NFC even while the phone was locked, but this obviously created some security issues and eventually they opted to change things to work the way they do now.
function used to exist, but hasn’t for years (android removed it)
we all want it back
it can be done, but requires rooting (last i checked, it still worked, but this may have changed) I can dig out the info later if your Google Foo fails you
locked & screen off isn’t something i imagine you’ll be able to achieve even with an alternate OS because that would be a needless waste of battery to be continually polling wake-up commands, it needs at least SOME indication the user wants to interact.
iphone (i know, unrelated) allows for the duty cycle of the nfc poller to begin once the screen is tapped awake, even when locked. the full shortcuts > automations feature set is available while locked excluding actions that would require the phone to be unlocked IE entering into an app, having an app run an exposed function without needing to be unlocked (IE spotify play song) can be done.
i’m not aware of any rooted android versions that have noted having a similar ability (while also retaining the automations) but rAND isn’t something i can say i’ve dipped more than a toe into.