I religiously turn NFC on when I'm about to use it to make a payment, and turn it straight off afterward.
Recently, I'm starting to find this more irritating, but I do it for safety against getting "swiped".
Wondering if you keep your NFC on all the time or not, and why…
see I have a smartwatch, so bluetooth has to be on at all times :\
Oops yeah forgot to mention. For those with a smartwatch or lucky enough to have a Tesla (or other cars utilizing smartphone key via bluetooth technology) will have it on at all times
I used to do that with all of Wifi, Bluetooth and NFC. Now I'm too lazy and they're just all turned on all the time.
You must charge your phone twice a day.
I recently starting using my old fitbit and have only the Bluetooth always on. I'm constantly charging my phone, moto g5 plus.
I literally stash spare chargers, charging cables, and powerbanks everywhere. Office, car, gym bag, work bag, running bag…
It's why I'm in basically every powerbank thread. I need to stop buying so many.
Edit: Oh, newer phone with 3,500mAH battery helps too.
all of Wifi, Bluetooth and NFC
Safest to just pull the battery out of the phone when you are not using it.
Can't be too careful.
WiFi chews through your battery, BT and NFC don't have a huge impact. I use the Llama app to turn WiFi on and off based on which cell towers I'm connected to but I use BT and NFC all the time.
From a security perspective, turn on your screen lock (fingerprint etc) so that it disables NFC and only enables it when unlocked.
If your phone is discharging too quickly try disabling Chat heads in Facebook and disable the permission that lets it "draw over other apps" or "overlay". For some reason this drains Android phones significantly.
Recently, I'm starting to find this more irritating, but I do it for safety against getting "swiped".
Why not just use a physical card if you're having to enable and disable NFC because you don't trust the security?
I keep NFC on all the time because it's more convenient and payment details are tokenised anyway. Even in the event of unauthorised activity, I can do a chargeback with the bank.
I don't always carry my wallet with me (if i'm going to the gym / beach), so the phone comes in handy if i need to make a payment.
When a card is added to Google Pay/Apple Pay, the card issuer generates a token (which is basically a virtual card number) and the phone locally stores a key to generate a cryptogram every time an NFC payment occurs. The actual card number isn't transmitted in an NFC payment.
The card issuer only authorises a transaction if it has both the token and a valid cryptogram (which can vaguely be thought of as a digital certificate). The important part is that a given cryptogram is only valid for a specific transaction, so even if an adversary were to intercept the NFC exchange, the data would be useless for performing any other transaction.
Thank you, science side of ozbargain!
No seriously, thanks, I had no idea
This right here, the way Google Pay (and probably the others) work makes skimming your phone way harder then a card and way more pointless.
To add to your points, even if they did pull it off not only can you charge back but your phone will pop a notification about the payment immediately and if you have a smart watch it'll mirror it too so you'll know way sooner and more actively then a normal scam generally.
I'm not saying it can't/won't happen, but the chances of you being near someone walking around trying to steal data via NFC would surely be slim. It would be relatively high risk, time consuming and low returns for the fraudster.
I'm pretty sure they would also only be able to skim the card number (apps like Google Pay tokenise the card number, so they shouldn't even be able to get that?) and expiry date, not the name, CVV and PIN, meaning it would limit what they can do with the data.
Much easier, low risk and higher returns for them to sit at home buying compromised card data and spending online or some other remote form of fraud than "NFC hacking"…
NFC payments are NOT active unless your screen is unlocked. So leave it on all the time :)
Well I have 3 options with my phone / bank app:
I use the second option
Thats your banks choices, if you use Android Pay, then its only option 2.
Can confirm JimmyF. I use Android pay and 2 unrelated banks cards and my payments will only go through if screen is unlocked. So, only option 2 for me from that list.
My Nexus 5 stamped out my habit of leaving NFC on, because it made this hugely irritating noise every singe time you locked and unlocked the screen which you couldn't disable. On my new V30+ (ty ozB) I'm still just turning it on and off as I need, but maybe I will leave it on as long as it doesn't need to remind me of the fact every 5 seconds.
If your phone is not rooted you should be fine.
Does anyone find that leaving NFC on has an impact on their phone battery?
Yep. Drains it, same with bluetooth, so I turn both off when not in use.
Absolutely not.
Apart from being high in salt, it is typically high in saturated fats and lacking fibre.
Sometimes is okay, but not all the time.
And when did they change the K for N. Is it because a certain group really enjoys it…
I had to read this 3 times to understand what you were on about. Good job, sir!
How many people actually use NFC? I reckon I've only seen about 5 ever.
Pretty much everyone I know uses their phone for payments these days and if they don't they tap their card which is not what you meant but is nfc.
The 'original' ideas that were floated for NFC in phones, file swapping and tapping tokens to make your phone do stuff has definitely never taken off though
Yes the tap and go thing is widespread but almost always with cards and not phones in my experience.
I can't use it as my phone doesn't have it. Even if it did, I would never use it.
Do it once and I think your opinion will change. Just like mine did.
I would never use it.
Why not?
In terms of using a phone instead of a card to make a payment I don't really see the point, its not like it saves any time or energy. Maybe if you are somewhere where you have the phone but not the card then it comes into play. But that's pretty much never for me.
I prefer to use cash, or if I don't have enough cash, my debit card. I don't use paywave with my debit card.
Turning NFC on or off is as simple as pulling down the top control panel on an android device and tapping the NFC switch.
Since these switches can be moved around OP could move the NFC switch so it appears in the top row without pulling down the rest of the control panel.
this would certainly resolve OP's issue
Leaving NFC ON does have various issues
1. It uses more power hence runs your battery down quicker
2. It interfers with reading of NFC enabled cards you might keep on the back of your phone such as Sydneys OPAL card.
3. It may allow unauthorised transactions of other NFC dependent payment methods.
SO TURN NFC OFF WHEN NOT IN USE
Its one of the main reasons I dislike iPhones. NFC cannot be turned off - at least on iphone 6,6s and 7
OP could move the NFC switch so it appears in the top row without pulling down the rest of the control panel.
Which phone is this a feature on? I can't seem to add this on my Pixel 2 XL?
The pull down control panel at the top of the screen on android phones can be customised.
On Samsung and Sony phones you simply pull down again along the bottom of the control panel and many more icones appear.
May be different execution on your Pixel 2.
It can on Pixel 2 also, but NFC is missing. I googled and plenty of complaints.
I'm like this with bluetooth as well lol, turn it on when I use with with my headphones then turn it off when nothing is actively paired.