audio labels and NFC tags

By Olivier, 3 January, 2020

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hello,
I was wondering if some of you might know about an app on iOS that would allow to assign an audio recording on an NFC tag. Samsung phones have this feature for years and I find it very helpful. I would like to know if their's a equivalent app that exists on iOS.
Best regards,
Olivier

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Comments

By Eileen on Sunday, January 5, 2020 - 08:37

If you have an iPhone XS, XR or 11 you can do this with Shortcuts as of iOS 13.

I have a handful of NFC tags attached to boxes in the pantry which play an audio file that tells me the contents of the box when scanned.

There are apps which offer similar functionality on older devices, but I believe that you need to trigger the scan (as opposed to it being done automatically in the background on the newer iPhones).

More here https://www.cultofmac.com/630494/ios-13-nfc-triggers-shortcuts/

By peter on Sunday, January 5, 2020 - 08:37

Sounds like you successfully hooked the shortcuts to playing back what is on an NFC tag or a special audio file associated with a particular NFC tag. I wonder if you could be a bit more specific about how you label each tag with an audio or text label.

Also, the WayAround app seems to have the capability of writing to and reading NFC tags, but they sell their own tags. Is there something special about the tags they sell or can any NFC tags be used with the app?

--pete

By Eileen on Sunday, January 5, 2020 - 08:37

I have the shortcut configured to play an audio file when the NFC tag is scanned. This will typically be a recording of me saying what the tag is. This isn't too sophisticated, but works okay for my use case.

By peter on Sunday, January 5, 2020 - 08:37

so do you make a specific recording for each specific NFC tag? How does your shortcut know which tag is being read and which audio to play?

By Eileen on Sunday, January 5, 2020 - 08:37

I have a separate shortcut for each tag.

By Alexbell on Wednesday, February 5, 2020 - 08:37

Hello Peter and Eileen,

First, Peter, about text labels, you can easily write them by using NFC Tools available in the AppStore or even Simply NFC, but I prefer the first one I think.

About Way Around, well, this app requires that we purchase their own tags, no way to use this one with regular NTAG213 or NTAG215 tags. Tags seems to be more expansive compared to what we can geg on Amazon / eBay, so really, I'm not wiling to buy their stuff.

Eileen, that's great, we thought about the same thing. I've tried to create one shortcut per tag and ask the shortcut to play my audio file. When I'm creating a shortcut to play an audio file and executing it, it's working. However, when I try to do it with an automation and attach this one to an NFC tag, I'm always receiving an error when the automation being process. I'll appreciate if you can provide me the way you're creating the automation and functions you're puting insid. If better, I can provide you an email so you can send me out the automation.

In extra, if someone hear about an app allowing to directly assign a voice label to a tag (like it exist on Samsung phones) without having to create an automation, please let me know as well!

Best!

By Eileen on Wednesday, February 5, 2020 - 08:37

My shortcut consists of just two steps after detecting the NFC tag:

  1. A get file action that points to a file stored in iCloud.
  2. A play sound action for the file in step 1.

The only other setting of note is that I have ask before running disabled.

By mooli on Sunday, July 5, 2020 - 08:37

Hi I'm looking for the same thing so that I can get my nfc tags to play sound. Oliver said there's an android app that does this, may I ask what it's called?