I know NFC is the new in thing and it may go a long way specially w/ payment systems.
I'm new to this wireless tags thing.
I'm a PHP applications developer and I'm gona do a few applications like Daily Time Recording and Membership app for an establishment.. My requirements are simple.. rather relying on barcode on ID's , or magnetic strips, I wanted to employ RFID, or perhaps NFC for this system.
All I need at the moment is the secure ID of the tag to be combined w/ an entry / profile in MySQL and do my magic from PHP side. I don't need long range reading /writing capabilities like RFID.
Would like to know the following:
1) W/c is generally cheaper to implement? Cheaper readers? Cheaper tags?
2) Which is more secure based on the above? I was told NFC is more secure, but w/ people being able to read and write on tags using their phones, how secure is it really? I do not plan to store vital info on the NFC chip, or if I do ill probably use some encryption to jarble the text data 3) NFC tags can be set as READ ONLY.. how does that work? is that secure? reliable? 4) Is it easier to mimic the tag's id/serial vs rfid serial?
and lastly, not to ask you guys to shop for me, but more on to point me to the right direction.. is there a reader/writer that has API's built in so that i can interface w/ it immediately using PHP?
Best Answer
RFID certainly is cheaper and simpler.
The main difference between the two is that with RFID the person carries a card/tag/etc. that can be thought as "passive". It is only powered when near (and by) the receiving antenna. NFC is to be embedded in cellphones and uses its source of power (the battery).
RFID is pretty secure for most applications. It is widely used around the world for bus fares. Only when you have applications that require more security (credit/debit card transactions, for instance, in which the average transaction amount is significantly higher) it wouldn't be recommended. Thus enters NFC.
For a test/demo environment, I'd recommend you to visit SparkFun or Adafruit. Their products are aimed at the hobby market, so they are pretty easy to start using. In general they'll open a virtual serial port via USB, so what you'll need in PHP is just any standard library for sending/receiving data through a serial port.