“NFC Everywhere” at CES 2017

Four Great Customer Experiences Brought To You By NFC @ CES

NFC technology remained a hot topic at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) again this year. Over 175,000 people descended on Las Vegas earlier this month. The lines were long. The noise volume was high, but one thing that cut through all the clutter was the tremendous amount of companies showcasing how NFC technology within their offerings helps brands create a better overall customer experience. Below are four of the coolest implementations of NFC at CES 2017.

• Carnival Cruise Line launched a wearable that allows services on board its ships to be personalized for guests. Called the Ocean Medallion, it can be worn as a necklace, clip or keychain – or carried in a passenger’s pocket. It uses NFC and BLE technologies to connect users to onboard facilities, track meal orders, unlock cabin doors, locate family onboard, buy merchandise and provide gambling platform access. The first ship to feature the system is the Regal Princess. 75 miles (121km) of cables, more than 7,000 sensors and 4,000 digital screens were installed on the ship in 10 days in Italy.

• Honda unveiled a demonstration of its in-vehicle payments platform at CES — similar to solutions highlighted at the NFC Forum’s VISIONFC Automotive Summit last October.   Honda’s service allows drivers to pay for parking and fuel with a touch of a button on the vehicle dashboard. This development is from its partnership with VISA to create various in-vehicle payment experiences. According to Honda, “the fuel and parking proof-of-concepts offer a quick and seamless in-vehicle payment solution, delivered through smartphone integrations.”

• Smartrac and high-performance blending equipment manufacturer Vitamix showcased how they are using NFC technology to take customer convenience and operational safety to a new level. The Vitamix Ascent Series blenders puts NFC readers into the appliance base and custom-built NFC tags embedded in the containers and cups. The NFC-enabled blender unit and the container can differentiate between containers i.e. the blender unit will turn on only if you use a compatible container. The NFC solution from Smartrac with self-detect containers can modify program settings, button functions, ramp rates or maximum time settings making it easier and providing a great customer experience. A scale along with a recipe app are also included.

• One2Touch featured its innovative NFC-based technology platform at CES for plug and play wearables, mobile accessories, toys and other IoT devices. The platform is engineered for seamless, secure and continuous communications between hub devices and accessories. Based on power harvesting and One2Touch’s protocol stack for continuous communication, mobile devices and accessories can both connect and communicate via NFC.  It features instant communication with no pairing, no need for batteries or charging and an immediate and secure data transfer.

NFC at CES. Two three-letter acronyms that belong together. There were many more NFC implementations unveiled at CES that showed how NFC can improve the overall customer experience for a product or service. Let us know if you went to CES this year and add a comment or two below about what NFC-enabled product or service you got excited about.