NFC Basics

In this document

The Tag Dispatch System
1. How NFC tags are mapped to MIME types and URIs
2. How NFC Tags are Dispatched to Applications
Requesting NFC Access in the Android Manifest
Filtering for Intents
Creating Common Types of NDEF Records
Beaming NDEF Messages to Other Devices

This document describes the basic NFC tasks you perform in Android. It explains how to send and receive NFC data in the form of NDEF messages and describes the Android framework APIs that support these features. For more advanced topics, including a discussion of working with non-NDEF data, see Advanced NFC.

There are two major uses cases when working with NDEF data and Android:

Reading NDEF data from an NFC tag
Beaming NDEF messages from one device to another with Android Beam™

Reading NDEF data from an NFC tag is handled with the tag dispatch system, which analyzes discovered NFC tags, appropriately categorizes the data, and starts an application that is interested in the categorized data. An application that wants to handle the scanned NFC tag can declare an intent filter and request to handle the data.

The Android Beam™ feature allows a device to push an NDEF message onto another device by physically tapping the devices together. This interaction provides an easier way to send data than other wireless technologies like Bluetooth, because with NFC, no manual device discovery or pairing is required. The connection is automatically started when two devices come into range. Android Beam is available through a set of NFC APIs, so any application can transmit information between devices. For example, the Contacts, Browser, and YouTube applications use Android Beam to share contacts, web pages, and videos with other devices.

The Tag Dispatch System

Android-powered devices are usually looking for NFC tags when the screen is unlocked, unless NFC is disabled in the device's Settings menu. When an Android-powered device discovers an NFC tag, the desired behavior is to have the most appropriate activity handle the intent without asking the user what application to use. Because devices scan NFC tags at a very short range, it is likely that making users manually select an activity would force them to move the device away from the tag and break the connection. You should develop your activity to only handle the NFC tags that your activity cares about to prevent the Activity Chooser from appearing.

To help you with this goal, Android provides a special tag dispatch system that analyzes scanned NFC tags, parses them, and tries to locate applications that are interested in the scanned data. It does this by:

Parsing the NFC tag and figuring out the MIME type or a URI that identifies the data payload in the tag.
Encapsulating the MIME type or URI and the payload into an intent. These first two steps are described in How NFC tags are mapped to MIME types and URIs.
Starts an activity based on the intent. This is described in How NFC Tags are Dispatched to Applications.

How NFC tags are mapped to MIME types and URIs

Before you begin writing your NFC applications, it is important to understand the different types of NFC tags, how the tag dispatch system parses NFC tags, and the special work that the tag dispatch system does when it detects an NDEF message. NFC tags come in a wide array of technologies and can also have data written to them in many different ways. Android has the most support for the NDEF standard, which is defined by the NFC Forum.

NDEF data is encapsulated inside a message (NdefMessage) that contains one or more records (NdefRecord). Each NDEF record must be well-formed according to the specification of the type of record that you want to create. Android also supports other types of tags that do not contain NDEF data, which you can work with by using the classes in the android.nfc.tech package. To learn more about these technologies, see the Advanced NFC topic. Working with these other types of tags involves writing your own protocol stack to communicate with the tags, so we recommend using NDEF when possible for ease of development and maximum support for Android-powered devices.

Note: To download complete NDEF specifications, go to the NFC Forum Specification Download site and see Creating common types of NDEF records for examples of how to construct NDEF records.

Now that you have some background in NFC tags, the following sections describe in more detail how Android handles NDEF formatted tags. When an Android-powered device scans an NFC tag containing NDEF formatted data, it parses the message and tries to figure out the data's MIME type or identifying URI. To do this, the system reads the first NdefRecord inside the NdefMessage to determine how to interpret the entire NDEF message (an NDEF message can have multiple NDEF records). In a well-formed NDEF message, the first NdefRecord contains the following fields:

3-bit TNF (Type Name Format): Indicates how to interpret the variable length type field. Valid values are described in described in Table 1.
Variable length type: Describes the type of the record. If using TNF_WELL_KNOWN, use this field to specify the Record Type Definition (RTD). Valid RTD values are described in Table 2.
Variable length ID: A unique identifier for the record. This field is not used often, but if you need to uniquely identify a tag, you can create an ID for it.
Variable length payload: The actual data payload that you want to read or write. An NDEF message can contain multiple NDEF records, so don't assume the full payload is in the first NDEF record of the NDEF message.

The tag dispatch system uses the TNF and type fields to try to map a MIME type or URI to the NDEF message. If successful, it encapsulates that information inside of a ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED intent along with the actual payload. However, there are cases when the tag dispatch system cannot determine the type of data based on the first NDEF record. This happens when the NDEF data cannot be mapped to a MIME type or URI, or when the NFC tag does not contain NDEF data to begin with. In such cases, a Tag object that has information about the tag's technologies and the payload are encapsulated inside of a ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED intent instead.

Table 1. describes how the tag dispatch system maps TNF and type fields to MIME types or URIs. It also describes which TNFs cannot be mapped to a MIME type or URI. In these cases, the tag dispatch system falls back to ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED.

For example, if the tag dispatch system encounters a record of type TNF_ABSOLUTE_URI, it maps the variable length type field of that record into a URI. The tag dispatch system encapsulates that URI in the data field of an ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED intent along with other information about the tag, such as the payload. On the other hand, if it encounters a record of type TNF_UNKNOWN, it creates an intent that encapsulates the tag's technologies instead.

Table 1. Supported TNFs and their mappings

Type Name Format (TNF)	Mapping
`TNF_ABSOLUTE_URI`	URI based on the type field.
`TNF_EMPTY`	Falls back to `ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED`.
`TNF_EXTERNAL_TYPE`	URI based on the URN in the type field. The URN is encoded into the NDEF type field in a shortened form: `<domain_name>:<service_name>`. Android maps this to a URI in the form: `vnd.android.nfc://ext/<domain_name>:<service_name>`.
`TNF_MIME_MEDIA`	MIME type based on the type field.
`TNF_UNCHANGED`	Invalid in the first record, so falls back to `ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED`.
`TNF_UNKNOWN`	Falls back to `ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED`.
`TNF_WELL_KNOWN`	MIME type or URI depending on the Record Type Definition (RTD), which you set in the type field. See Table 2. for more information on available RTDs and their mappings.

Table 2. Supported RTDs for TNF_WELL_KNOWN and their mappings

Record Type Definition (RTD)	Mapping
`RTD_ALTERNATIVE_CARRIER`	Falls back to `ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED`.
`RTD_HANDOVER_CARRIER`	Falls back to `ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED`.
`RTD_HANDOVER_REQUEST`	Falls back to `ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED`.
`RTD_HANDOVER_SELECT`	Falls back to `ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED`.
`RTD_SMART_POSTER`	URI based on parsing the payload.
`RTD_TEXT`	MIME type of `text/plain`.
`RTD_URI`	URI based on payload.

How NFC Tags are Dispatched to Applications

When the tag dispatch system is done creating an intent that encapsulates the NFC tag and its identifying information, it sends the intent to an interested application that filters for the intent. If more than one application can handle the intent, the Activity Chooser is presented so the user can select the Activity. The tag dispatch system defines three intents, which are listed in order of highest to lowest priority:

ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED: This intent is used to start an Activity when a tag that contains an NDEF payload is scanned and is of a recognized type. This is the highest priority intent, and the tag dispatch system tries to start an Activity with this intent before any other intent, whenever possible.
ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED: If no activities register to handle the ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED intent, the tag dispatch system tries to start an application with this intent. This intent is also directly started (without starting ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED first) if the tag that is scanned contains NDEF data that cannot be mapped to a MIME type or URI, or if the tag does not contain NDEF data but is of a known tag technology.
ACTION_TAG_DISCOVERED: This intent is started if no activities handle the ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED or ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED intents.

The basic way the tag dispatch system works is as follows:

Try to start an Activity with the intent that was created by the tag dispatch system when parsing the NFC tag (either ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED or ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED).
If no activities filter for that intent, try to start an Activity with the next lowest priority intent (either ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED or ACTION_TAG_DISCOVERED) until an application filters for the intent or until the tag dispatch system tries all possible intents.
If no applications filter for any of the intents, do nothing.

Figure 1. Tag Dispatch System

Whenever possible, work with NDEF messages and the ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED intent, because it is the most specific out of the three. This intent allows you to start your application at a more appropriate time than the other two intents, giving the user a better experience.

Requesting NFC Access in the Android Manifest

Before you can access a device's NFC hardware and properly handle NFC intents, declare these items in your AndroidManifest.xml file:

The NFC <uses-permission> element to access the NFC hardware:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.NFC" />

The minimum SDK version that your application can support. API level 9 only supports limited tag dispatch via ACTION_TAG_DISCOVERED, and only gives access to NDEF messages via the EXTRA_NDEF_MESSAGES extra. No other tag properties or I/O operations are accessible. API level 10 includes comprehensive reader/writer support as well as foreground NDEF pushing, and API level 14 provides an easier way to push NDEF messages to other devices with Android Beam and extra convenience methods to create NDEF records.
```
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="10"/>
```
The uses-feature element so that your application shows up in Google Play only for devices that have NFC hardware:
```
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.nfc" android:required="true" />
```
If your application uses NFC functionality, but that functionality is not crucial to your application, you can omit the uses-feature element and check for NFC avalailbility at runtime by checking to see if getDefaultAdapter() is null.

Filtering for NFC Intents

To start your application when an NFC tag that you want to handle is scanned, your application can filter for one, two, or all three of the NFC intents in the Android manifest. However, you usually want to filter for the ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED intent for the most control of when your application starts. The ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED intent is a fallback for ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED when no applications filter for ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED or for when the payload is not NDEF. Filtering for ACTION_TAG_DISCOVERED is usually too general of a category to filter on. Many applications will filter for ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED or ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED before ACTION_TAG_DISCOVERED, so your application has a low probability of starting. ACTION_TAG_DISCOVERED is only available as a last resort for applications to filter for in the cases where no other applications are installed to handle the ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED or ACTION_TECH_DISCOVEREDintent.

Because NFC tag deployments vary and are many times not under your control, this is not always possible, which is why you can fallback to the other two intents when necessary. When you have control over the types of tags and data written, it is recommended that you use NDEF to format your tags. The following sections describe how to filter for each type of intent.

ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED

To filter for ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED intents, declare the intent filter along with the type of data that you want to filter for. The following example filters for ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED intents with a MIME type of text/plain:

<intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.nfc.action.NDEF_DISCOVERED"/>
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
    <data android:mimeType="text/plain" />
</intent-filter>

The following example filters for a URI in the form of http://developer.android.com/index.html.

<intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.nfc.action.NDEF_DISCOVERED"/>
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
   <data android:scheme="http"
              android:host="developer.android.com"
              android:pathPrefix="/index.html" />
</intent-filter>

ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED

If your activity filters for the ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED intent, you must create an XML resource file that specifies the technologies that your activity supports within a tech-list set. Your activity is considered a match if a tech-list set is a subset of the technologies that are supported by the tag, which you can obtain by calling getTechList().

For example, if the tag that is scanned supports MifareClassic, NdefFormatable, and NfcA, your tech-list set must specify all three, two, or one of the technologies (and nothing else) in order for your activity to be matched.

The following sample defines all of the technologies. You can remove the ones that you do not need. Save this file (you can name it anything you wish) in the <project-root>/res/xml folder.

<resources xmlns:xliff="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2">
    <tech-list>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.IsoDep</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcA</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcB</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcF</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcV</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.Ndef</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.NdefFormatable</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.MifareClassic</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.MifareUltralight</tech>
    </tech-list>
</resources>

You can also specify multiple tech-list sets. Each of the tech-list sets is considered independently, and your activity is considered a match if any single tech-list set is a subset of the technologies that are returned by getTechList(). This provides AND and OR semantics for matching technologies. The following example matches tags that can support the NfcA and Ndef technologies or can support the NfcB and Ndef technologies:

<resources xmlns:xliff="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2">
    <tech-list>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcA</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.Ndef</tech>
    </tech-list>
</resources>

<resources xmlns:xliff="urn:oasis:names:tc:xliff:document:1.2">
    <tech-list>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.NfcB</tech>
        <tech>android.nfc.tech.Ndef</tech>
    </tech-list>
</resources>

In your AndroidManifest.xml file, specify the resource file that you just created in the <meta-data> element inside the <activity> element like in the following example:

<activity>
...
<intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.nfc.action.TECH_DISCOVERED"/>
</intent-filter>

<meta-data android:name="android.nfc.action.TECH_DISCOVERED"
    android:resource="@xml/nfc_tech_filter" />
...
</activity>

For more information about working with tag technologies and the ACTION_TECH_DISCOVERED intent, see Working with Supported Tag Technologies in the Advanced NFC document.

ACTION_TAG_DISCOVERED

To filter for ACTION_TAG_DISCOVERED use the following intent filter:

<intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.nfc.action.TAG_DISCOVERED"/>
</intent-filter>

Obtaining information from intents

If an activity starts because of an NFC intent, you can obtain information about the scanned NFC tag from the intent. Intents can contain the following extras depending on the tag that was scanned:

EXTRA_TAG (required): A Tag object representing the scanned tag.
EXTRA_NDEF_MESSAGES (optional): An array of NDEF messages parsed from the tag. This extra is mandatory on intents.

{@link android.nfc.NfcAdapter#EXTRA_ID (optional): The low-level ID of the tag.

To obtain these extras, check to see if your activity was launched with one of the NFC intents to ensure that a tag was scanned, and then obtain the extras out of the intent. The following example checks for the ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED intent and gets the NDEF messages from an intent extra.

public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    ...
    if (NfcAdapter.ACTION_NDEF_DISCOVERED.equals(getIntent().getAction())) {
        Parcelable[] rawMsgs = intent.getParcelableArrayExtra(NfcAdapter.EXTRA_NDEF_MESSAGES);
        if (rawMsgs != null) {
            msgs = new NdefMessage[rawMsgs.length];
            for (int i = 0; i < rawMsgs.length; i++) {
                msgs[i] = (NdefMessage) rawMsgs[i];
            }
        }
    }
    //process the msgs array
}

Alternatively, you can obtain a Tag object from the intent, which will contain the payload and allow you to enumerate the tag's technologies:

Tag tag = intent.getParcelableExtra(NfcAdapter.EXTRA_TAG);

Creating Common Types of NDEF Records

This section describes how to create common types of NDEF records to help you when writing to NFC tags or sending data with Android Beam. It also describes how to create the corresponding intent filter for the record. All of these NDEF record examples should be in the first NDEF record of the NDEF message that you are writing to a tag or beaming.

TNF_ABSOLUTE_URI

Given the following TNF_ABSOLUTE_URI NDEF record, which is stored as the first record inside of an NdefMessage:

NdefRecord uriRecord = new NdefRecord(
    NdefRecord.TNF_ABSOLUTE_URI ,
    "http://developer.android.com/index.html".getBytes(Charset.forName("US-ASCII")),
    new byte[0], new byte[0]);