NFC and security - Best practices?

[rpwong (Russ)]

@JustinG

If you must have the NFC tag then I would implement it through something like Tasker. You can write tags that will trigger a Tasker action and tasker can then communicate with the android app to send the unlock command to the lock item. But anyone scanning the tag without the exact tasker action (difficult to duplicate without direct knowledge) would not be able to unlock the door.

Great idea. I actually did this at first when I was playing with NFC tags, because I didn’t realize NFC read/write was built into the openHAB Android app. The only downside is that Tasker adds lag (in my testing), but it’s not significant.

@JustinG

A side effect of this system is that you can also make device/user specific responses to the scanning the tag by creating different tasker actions for different people.

Also a great idea. Mind you, everyone has to have the openHAB app installed/configured, so I’m not sure the effort is worth the payoff. But I like the possibilities.

@Bruce_Osborne

OK so communication is BTLE to the phone.

I don’t think NFC is BTLE, but I admittedly don’t know a ton about how it works.