NFC Trigger Regardless of iPhone or Android

I’m using Bixby to run a scene in Smartthings when I tap a NCF-tag, but that’s maybe a Samsung only-app

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I have a very similar requirement - to open/close a driveway gate from my Android phone and my wife’s iPhone. I currently have the NFC tag set up to send an HTTP request into SharpTools, but it’s not secure as anyone could do it if they knew the tag was there (and what it did).

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Did you write the Rule Trigger URL to the tag? Could you instead store the URL on your phone and just use the presence of the NFC tag (without sensitive data on it) to run the action on your phone (eg. Tasker on Android, Shortcuts on iOS)?

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Yep, that’s exactly what I did. I was just really playing around at the time to see what was possible. I’ll have a look at Tasker to see how that works. Thx :+1:t2:

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I think, in a perfect world, it could maybe be a custom URL or something like that which would know to open the SmartThings app, recognize you were already logged in, and then fire off an activity. My guess is that’s either not possible or no one knows the schema for how to do it? That way if an unknown scanned the NFC tag, nothing would happen because the app wouldn’t exist on their phone or wouldn’t have the credentials in place. The goal is to not have to use, or at least minimize the use of, 3rd party apps that every phone would have to also have on their device. Something more device agnostic.

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100%. I remember I did look at Tasker at the time, but all the tutorials I looked at used Trigger to detect the NFC tag to launch Tasker. I already have the sequence of the URL triggering SharpTools that controls a device on SmartThings, that is connected to my gate via iSmartGate cloud service.

It’s seems like a convaltuted process to have the NFC tag be picked up by Trigger, that launches Tasker, to send URL (by opening the browser) to SharpTools, to control a Smartthings device that is cloud connected to my gate. The very gate on which the NFC tag is stuck.

There must be a simpler way.

This is apple only so probably doesn’t help but I was doing this with Apple homekit and shortcuts. Worked flawlessly. I did use tasker with an android box but as mentioned I had security concerns.
Its a real shame that ST doesn’t support universal NFC tags

However ive stopped until Homebridge / smartthings link structure is sorted. I dont want to change the topic but Anyone know if this is being worked on?

I haven’t used Tasker for a little while but I thought it had built in support for NFC tags. It can certainly call the SmartThings API directly (see SmartThings Rest API using Tasker for inspiration).

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Conversation in the following thread. Please take further HomeKit discussion there.

[RELEASE] Homebridge SmartThings v2.0 - #328 by jkp

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You are correct, Tasker does aupport nfc tags. I actually use it to scan a tag and run a scene.

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I played with NFC tags and Tasker a couple years ago. They require very close proximity to be read.

I’m curious how you trigger a gate with an NFC tag. Do you have to get out of the car?

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We have gate remotes in our cars. It’s more for when we are in the front yard and want to take bins in /out etc

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I would mount a nfc tag(old hotel room key cards are great for this) on the bins. Scan with your phone using tasker then. Use the appropriate API calls using tasker.

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Im using the JSmartApp (find it here: JSmartApp by @jwerfel …you can use add your ST account to the app and you can generate a device URL or scene URL and use them with NFC Tags. Works flawlessly

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Remember that the OP’s family has some people with android phones and some people with iPhones so they need a solution for each.

You are correct, I ment to quote another post. I will fix that.

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When you generate the device or scene URL, can you add more to it to fire off the activity? For example, can you grab the door lock URL and add “unlock” so it’s a one step process? Scan the NFC and it unlocks the door. No extra button presses.

To answer your question, yes. Me, I just created a scene with all the things I want done and it works. I used to use the NFC with homekit to unlock the door, but you need to still hit ok to run the automation with the iPhone. With this, it just works

That was changed a couple of releases back. Using Shortcuts, you can now run an automation triggered by NFC without requiring the notification. :sunglasses:

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I’ll give it a try once i arrive home. Thank you @JDRoberts.

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