Beginning NFC Near Field Communication with Arduino, Android, and PhoneGa

245 Pages·2014·23.9 MB·English

by  Tom Igoe

Beginning NFC
Near Field Communication with Arduino,
Android, and PhoneGap

Tom Igoe, Don Coleman, and Brian Jepson
Beginning NFC
by Tom Igoe, Don Coleman, and Brian Jepson
Copyright © 2014 Tom Igoe, Don Coleman, and Brian Jepson. All rights reserved.
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January 2014: First Edition
Revision History for the First Edition:
2013-01-13: First release
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ISBN: 978-1-449-37206-4
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This book is dedicated to Red Burns.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Who This Book Is For 2
Recommended Reading 2
What’s Covered in This Book 3
What You’ll Need 4
Hardware 4
Software 6
Other Useful NFC Apps 7
Conventions Used in This Book 7
Using Code Examples 8
Safari® Books Online 8
How to Contact Us 9
Acknowledgments 9
2. NFC and RFID. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
What’s RFID? 11
What’s NFC? 12
How RFID Operates 13
RFID Standards 13
How NFC Operates 14
NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) 14
The Architecture of NFC 15
NFC Tag Types 17
Where to Get Tags 18
Device-to-Tag Type Matching 19
What You Can Do with NFC 20
Conclusion 21
3. Getting Started with PhoneGap and the PhoneGap-NFC Library. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
v
Why Android? 23
Hello, World! Your First PhoneGap App 24
Setting Up the Development Environment 24
Creating a PhoneGap Project 29
The Important Files 33
A Simple Locator App 34
PhoneGap Meets NFC: NFC Reader 40
Installing the NFC Plug-In 41
Writing the NFC Reader App 42
Troubleshooting 46
Conclusion 46
4. Introducing NDEF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
NDEF Structure 49
Type Name Format 51
Payload Type 51
Payload Identifier 53
Payload 53
Record Layout 53
Record Header 54
How Big Can an NDEF Message Be? 55
Record Chunking 56
Additional Info 56
NDEF in Practice 56
A Tag Writer Application: Foursquare Check-In 61
Writing an NDEF Record to a Tag 62
Writing Different Record Types 66
PhoneGap-NFC NDEF Helper Functions, Summarized 71
Conclusion 72
5. Listening for NDEF Messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
PhoneGap-NFC’s Event Listeners 75
An NDEF Reader Application 77
Listening for Multiple Events 78
Reading the NDEF Messages 81
Filtering Tags Using Record Types 84
Filtering Using MIME-Types 86
Android’s Tag Dispatch System 89
Types of Intents 89
Android Application Records 93
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Conclusion 93
6. An NFC Application in Practice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
The User Interaction 97
Getting to Know Hue, Getting to Know All About Hue 98
The Hue Data Format 101
The Hue’s REST API 104
The Android Shell 104
The PhoneGap Media API 105
The User Interface 106
The Application Code 109
Housekeeping Functions 110
Global Event Handlers 112
Hub Communication Functions 114
Lighting User Interface Event Handlers 118
Music User Interface Event Handlers 121
NFC Event Handlers 126
Enabling Background Dispatch 128
Conclusion 129
7. Introduction to Arduino and NFC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Digital Meets Physical: Arduino 131
The Hardware Heart of NFC 133
The Arduino Development Environment 133
Serial Communication 137
Installing Arduino Libraries 138
The Arduino NDEF Library 140
Reading NDEF in Arduino 142
Writing NDEF in Arduino 145
A Microcontroller NFC Application: Hotel Key Cards 146
The Interaction and Data Format 148
The Arduino NDEF Writer Device 150
The Arduino NDEF Reader and Door Lock Device 156
A Browser Interface for the Arduino NDEF Writer Device 164
Node.js Application Specification: package.json 164
The Client-Side Code 165
The Server-Side Code 166
Conclusion 171
8. Peer-to-Peer Exchange. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Sending Peer-to-Peer Messages in PhoneGap 175
Receiving Peer-to-Peer Messages in PhoneGap 183
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Handover 185
Static Handover 186
Sending Handover Messages in PhoneGap 186
Peer-to-Peer Using Arduino 192
Card Emulation 193
Conclusion 194
9. NFC on Embedded Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Introduction to Embedded Linux Devices and Package Managers 196
Network, USB, and NFC 196
NFC on Embedded Linux: The Overview 199
Housekeeping Details 200
Get Comfortable with Your Editing Workflow 200
Know Your Package Manager 200
Set the Date and Time 201
Make a Downloads Directory 202
BeagleBone Peculiarities 202
Raspberry Pi Peculiarities 202
Installing the Tools for NFC 203
Installing the Libusb Compatibility Library 204
Installing libnfc 204
Testing the Installation on Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone 205
Installing libfreefare 205
Libnfc and Libfreefare Command Line Tools 206
NDEF Reading and Writing in Node.js 208
Web Interface for Tag Writer 212
Tags Controlling Physical Output 214
BeagleBone Version 214
Raspberry Pi Version 217
Conclusion 221
A. NFC Specification Codes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
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