NFC: Launch App

The NFC Launch App sample shows how to use the NFC tag to launch an app on the polling smartphone. It uses the NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) library.

Requirements

This sample supports the following development kits:

Hardware platforms

PCA

Board name

Board target

nRF7120 DK

nrf7120dk

nrf7120dk/nrf7120/cpuapp

nRF54LM20 DK

PCA10184

nrf54lm20dk

nrf54lm20dk/nrf54lm20b/cpuapp nrf54lm20dk/nrf54lm20a/cpuapp

nRF54L15 DK

PCA10156

nrf54l15dk

nrf54l15dk/nrf54l15/cpuapp

nRF54L15 DK (emulating nRF54L10)

PCA10156

nrf54l15dk

nrf54l15dk/nrf54l10/cpuapp

nRF54L15 DK (emulating nRF54L05)

PCA10156

nrf54l15dk

nrf54l15dk/nrf54l05/cpuapp

nRF54H20 DK

PCA10175

nrf54h20dk

nrf54h20dk/nrf54h20/cpuapp

nRF5340 DK

PCA10095

nrf5340dk

nrf5340dk/nrf5340/cpuapp/ns nrf5340dk/nrf5340/cpuapp

nRF52 DK

PCA10040

nrf52dk

nrf52dk/nrf52832

nRF52840 DK

PCA10056

nrf52840dk

nrf52840dk/nrf52840

For more security, it is recommended to use the */ns variant of the board target. When built for this variant, the sample is configured to compile and run as a non-secure application using security by separation. Therefore, it automatically includes Trusted Firmware-M that prepares the required peripherals and secure services to be available for the application.

The sample also requires a smartphone or a tablet. You need to have the nRF Toolbox app installed for iOS devices.

Overview

When the sample starts, it initializes the NFC tag and generates an NDEF message with two records that contain the app Universal Link and Android Application Record. Then it sets up the NFC library to use the generated message and sense the external NFC field.

The only events handled by the application are the NFC events.

User interface

LED 1:

Indicates if an NFC field is present.

Building and running

This sample can be found under samples/nfc/record_launch_app in the nRF Connect SDK folder structure.

For more security, it is recommended to use the */ns variant of the board target (see the Requirements section above.) When built for this variant, the sample is configured to compile and run as a non-secure application using security by separation. Therefore, it automatically includes Trusted Firmware-M that prepares the required peripherals and secure services to be available for the application.

To build the sample, follow the instructions in Building an application for your preferred building environment. See also Programming an application for programming steps and Testing and optimization for general information about testing and debugging in the nRF Connect SDK.

Note

When building repository applications in the SDK repositories, building with sysbuild is enabled by default. If you work with out-of-tree freestanding applications, you need to manually pass the --sysbuild parameter to every build command or configure west to always use it.

Note

If you are using debug messages in the NFCT driver, the driver might not be working properly if you have CONFIG_LOG_MODE_IMMEDIATE enabled. The NFCT driver is part of the nrfx driver package. For more information about this driver, see the NFCT driver page in the nrfx repository.

Testing

After programming the sample to your development kit, complete the following steps to test it:

  1. Touch the NFC antenna with the smartphone or tablet and observe that LED 1 is lit.

  2. Observe that the smartphone or tablet launches the nRF Toolbox application.

  3. Move the smartphone or tablet away from the NFC antenna and observe that LED 1 turns off.

Note

Devices running iOS require the nRF Toolbox app to be installed before testing the sample. Devices running Android open Google Play when the application is not installed.

Dependencies

This sample uses the following nRF Connect SDK libraries:

In addition, it uses the Type 2 Tag library from sdk-nrfxlib:

The sample uses the following Zephyr libraries:

  • include/zephyr.h

  • include/power/reboot.h

The sample also uses the following secure firmware component: