I've been writing about NFC and QR codes for over a decade.

[yvan@toot.ale.gd]

@Edent I don't think I've come across a non-payment NFC "in the wild" since EMFCamp in 2024!

That aside, I have some programmable NFC discs that I have used for some plant tracking (I embed them into 3d printed labels). But I've not used them yet this year... it's one of those "seems like a nice techie idea, but it's really just a bit of a faff". Maybe if I was tracking 100s of plants it'd be more worth it. There's a chilli utoober called Chilli Chump who does this, but he does literally grow hundreds of plants across so many varieties... so it starts to cross the barrier into making sense then.

Anyway, perhaps a bit tangential lol...

[kevin@fedi.kevinisageek.org]

@Edent since the start of 2026, both are zero. Before then, I recall scanning a QR code at a Yo Sushi to order food but that was a while ago.

[giles@social.gilespaterson.com]

@Edent the only thing I use NFC for is my kids' Yoto players. The story cards are NFC and I use my phone to link podcasts and downloaded audio books to the "Make Your Own" cards.

[yvan@toot.ale.gd]

@Edent actually, since EMFCamp I think the last/only non-payment NFC use I can remember is using an app to scan my passport for UK immigration/visa services.

[sheddi@mstdn.party]

@Edent
QR: rarely but not zero.
NFC: excluding phone payments, and also excluding when my phone "helpfully" reads the NFC in my passport or library book if I put them next to one another, zero.

[benjamingeer@piaille.fr]

@Edent I use NFC every day to pay for things at POS terminals in shops

[bencurthoys@mastodon.social]

@Edent i was talking to someone at a conference last week who'd figured out a way of using conductive ink to print RFID antenna on tickets, if that's in your zone of interest.

[edent@mastodon.social]

@bencurthoys oooh! Yes, that does sound interesting. Although I suppose it still needs the chip part adding?

[derickr@phpc.social]

@spacehobo @Edent "I have a Fairphone 5 which has no capability for NFC" — I beg to differ.

I've been using that for as long as I had this phone. Payments, TfL, passport reading, it works fine.

[kianryan@oldbytes.space]

@Edent We use QR codes for cataloguing small people. We use a lot of QR codes.

[chris@nutmeg.social]

@Edent I use NFC discs as light switches like a lunatic.

I could buy IoT buttons, but NFC discs are dirt cheap and I'm lazy.

[derickr@phpc.social]

@yvan @Edent One of my friends bottled his own maple syrup. The bottle had an NFC chip under a label under the bottom going to a website.

[tootbrute@fedi.arkadi.one]

@Edent NFC 0. qr codes only for restaurant menus. Don't even use tap to pay.

[mms@mastodon.bsd.cafe]

@Edent "I have used neither in the last 6 months", so the the 3rd?

[lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me]

@Edent Well… both about the same, zero. My feature phone doesn't do either.

[woe2you@beige.party]

@Edent Voted QR, but if it weren't for Steam I'd never use QR codes at all, because I dislike my phone being sent to a link that I can't preview.

[johnmclear@mastodon.green]

@Edent I'm down for this poll It's defo unfair for me to comment tho, I'm too invested...

[bencurthoys@mastodon.social]

@Edent Yeah that was the point at which I stopped seeing the point. At least from a ticketing perspective.

If they had a way of printing an antenna that in some way encoded a number that would be the equivalent of a barcode then I could be into that, but just a static antenna seemed less useful to me. Basically what he was doing at a ticketing conference was wandering round saying "I've invented this thing, can anyone think of anything it's useful for?"

[bencurthoys@mastodon.social]

@Edent https://agitoasia.com/ is the outfit.

[johnmclear@mastodon.green]

@Edent IDK if you know this but..

1. The OS providers (apple/google) knee capped NFC then installed themselves as the gatekeepers it by smart-tap and VAS.

2. They OS providers are now trying to figure out a way to make NFC "useful" again with Aliro.

Essentially introducing the Secure Element to the phone hardware meant a huge moat was created between normal devs and the OS providers.

Ironically, my most recent phone doesn't even have NFC, I just use my ring to make payments..