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Is it possible to establish connection between Galaxy Nexus Jelly Bean (4.1.1.) mobile and any regular desktop contactless reader (ISO 14443 A/B)?

As I know, android does not support card emulation mode, so it should be done only by p2p mode. Is p2p based on ISO 14443, so any reader can be used, or it needs also a specific NFC chip, not the standard ISO14443 chip used in older readers?

NFC guy
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Mareq
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2 Answers2

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The answer to your first question is yes, the GNEx should support ISO 14443 A/B.

I'm not sure what you're asking in your second question, but I can tell you that one of the readers must be of one of the formats listed above.

hwrdprkns
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  • I need to communicate Android Jelly Bean with my desktop PC through regular PC/SC reader, that supports NFC tag types 1 to 4. Is it possible? How? – Mareq Aug 07 '12 at 12:41
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No, Android can do NFC peer-to-peer communication (a.k.a. NFC-IP1, ISO 18092). As of Jelly Bean (4.1), this will happen on 212 kbit/s. (Previous versions of Android also supported 106 kbit/s, unless Google Wallet was activated on the device.) NFC peer-to-peer at 212 kbit/s uses FeliCa modulation (not ISO 14443-A modulation), so probably not all ISO 14443 desktop readers will be able to support it.

NFC guy
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  • Thanks, so please: 1. Is it possible to establish connection with Jelly Bean through anyh PC/SC reader, that supports NFC tag types 3 (FeliCa)? 2. So is that true, that NFC P2P is based on top of ISO14443? That means, when I have PC/SC reader, that supports ISO14443 tag types 1 to 4, I am able to use also P2P? I hope, I will run nfcpy/libnfc/... on top of PC/SC? – Mareq Aug 07 '12 at 12:34
  • Both nfcpy and libnfc support readers based on NFC chips by NXP, which usually support P2P. So if your desktop reader is supported, there is a good chance that it can communicate with an Android device. – NFC guy Aug 07 '12 at 13:57
  • http://www.nxp.com/products/identification_and_security/reader_ics/nfc_devices/#products is the proper one. From the other page only the CLRC663 supports P2P. It is so new that I am not aware of any desktop readers using it already. – NFC guy Aug 08 '12 at 11:47
  • Ok. Please, does that mean, that I need readers with http://www.nxp.com/products/identification_and_security/reader_ics/nfc_devices/#products chips. Or it is enough to have these chips http://www.nxp.com/products/identification_and_security/reader_ics/contactless_reader_systems/#products (there is not mentioned NFC). Or, which are the NXP reader chips, that support also NFC, and which support also NFC P2P? – Mareq Aug 08 '12 at 12:09
  • I have one reader ACS ACR 1281U-C1 with NXP MFRC531 chip and another reader FEIG ID CPR40.30-SUSB with NXP RC523 chip. When looking at chips descriptions at NXP site, the RC523 supports only ISO14443A+MIFARE and RC531 supports ISO14443A+B+MIFARE. – Mareq Aug 08 '12 at 12:09
  • So am I right, that the both readers do npot support FeliCa, that means, that they can communicate only with Android ICS (without Google Wallet activated), but not with Android JB, because it uses FeliCa standard with P2P? Does it mean also, that with Android JB it is only a software issue, because the chip supports also other standards, but Google decided to use P2P in ICS only with FeliCa standard? – Mareq Aug 08 '12 at 12:10
  • So does it mean, that it is important to have reader with chip, that supports all ISO14443A+B+MIFARE+FeliCa to be able to communicate with any Android device in P2P mode, or are there also other requirements on the reader? For example ACS ACR122U reader supports all tag types (hthp://www.acs.com.hk/index.php?pid=product&prod_sections=0&id=ACR122U), so does it mean, that it should be able to communicate with Android, I only have to use correct P2P implementation (it is part of application layer), eg. libnfc or nfcpy? – Mareq Aug 08 '12 at 12:10
  • sorry, I added more questions to your response, so deleted the first part (I had to divide it to more blocks because of max. number of chars constraint). Please, if you could answer all my questions. Thanks a lot. – Mareq Aug 08 '12 at 12:12
  • Please, keep in mind that FeliCa R/W capability is different from being able to do P2P (the RF modulation is the same, but the bytes being sent are different). The chips listed at http://www.nxp.com/products/identification_and_security/reader_ics/nfc_devices/#products are the NFC products and do P2P up to 424kbps (so this implies support for FeliCa modulation), they also can read FeliCa cards. RC531 and RC523 chips do not support P2P at all (so they cannot communicate with any Android NFC device). You are OK with a PNxxx family chip, but not with an RCxxx family chip (but RC663 is OK too). – NFC guy Aug 08 '12 at 14:37
  • "...the bytes being sent are different" - this is the responsibility of the chip, or of the reader firmware or of my application? I can send to the other side APDU commands. Is the P2P protocol encapsulated in standard APDU encapsulation or it is a different form (not using stanrad APDU encapsulation)? – Mareq Aug 09 '12 at 14:42
  • APDUs are used for card reader/writer mode. Peer-to-peer communication has no concept of commands and responses. How to communicate from your application to your reader, depends on the reader firmware, the driver and the middleware layer you are using. For some drivers you may have to encapsulate the data in APDUs, but for some others (like libnfc) you use a different mode where you just send the data you want to transceive. – NFC guy Aug 09 '12 at 15:10
  • So with libnfc, is it possible to use p2p with the PC/SC driver? And secondly, is there any other way how to communicate with Android? I saw few discussions, that people were able to communicate with Android by ACR122U reader. But there is no mention about P2P by ACR122U. – Mareq Aug 09 '12 at 16:02
  • Or better question: what are the possible ways, to communicate my PC with Android JB device? What are the possible readers to accomplish it? Thanks a lot. – Mareq Aug 09 '12 at 16:40
  • Sorry, this is uncharted territory. There is no such list of readers available. Readers differ too much in what their manufacturers make available in functionality on various platforms, what kind of API they support and what 3rd party libraries are available for them. I gave all information I have, based on the possible chips inside such readers; that is where my knowledge ends. This should allow you to find likely candidate readers and search for other people's experiences with them to find a solution that works for you. – NFC guy Aug 10 '12 at 17:54