Interfacing external sensors with Android smartphones through near field communication

Abstract

In this paper, we present and evaluate a new approach to communicate with inter-integrated circuit (I2C) enabled circuits such as sensors over near field communication (NFC). The NFC-to-I2C interface was designed using a non-standard NFC command to control the I2C bus directly from a smartphone, which was controlling both, the read and write operations on the I2C bus. The NFC-to-I2C interface was reporting back the data bytes on the bus to the smartphone when the transaction was completed successfully. The proposed system was tested experimentally, both, with write and read requests to a commercial microcontroller featuring a hardware I2C port, as well as reading a commercial I2C enabled humidity and temperature sensor. We present experimental results of the system which show that our approach enables an easy interface between smartphones and external sensors. Interfacing external sensors is useful and beneficial for smartphone users, especially, if certain types of sensors are not available on smartphones.

Calibration of smartphone light sensors with a near field communication enabled reference

“…The measurement system is based on an NFC enabled fieldprogrammable gate-array (FPGA) device as the NFC-to-I2C interface [4]. The NFC-to-I2C interface is connected to the TSL2561 ambient light sensor by TAOS (Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions) [6].…”

“…This system is based on an NFC to Inter-Integrated Circuits (I2C) interface device, which we have developed [4], and is connected with a reference ambient light sensor. The NFC-to-I2C interface enables smart phones featuring NFC to interact directly with the I2C enabled circuit, in this case with an ambient light sensor.…”

“…The NFC-to-I2C interface enables smart phones featuring NFC to interact directly with the I2C enabled circuit, in this case with an ambient light sensor. The interaction works through a custom NFC request, which controls the I2C master core in the NFC-to-I2C interface, making the smart phone the master on the I2C bus [4].…”

Smart Textile Integrated Wireless Powered Near Field Communication Body Temperature and Sweat Sensing System

“…Over the past decade, NFC has become one of the potential solutions in wireless health and wellbeing monitoring applications for its low cost, low power consumption, easy access and ability of integration with multiple types of smart sensors [17], [18]. In [19], interfacing external sensors (temperature, humidity, light, pressure etc.) with smart phones through NFC was proposed.…”

Efficient external sensors for smartphones through near field communication (NFC)

“…Thus, people are seeking for more information, for example, about their current ambient conditions in order to improve their health and wellbeing [1]- [3]. At present, people are missing the opportunity to obtain information directly, for example with the help of their smartphones and tablets due to the lack of sensors on their mobile devices [4].…”