Innovation CHEF

Tuam, the County Galway Town famous for High Crosses and The Saw Doctors could soon be making headlines as the first City in Europe to have commercially deployed Near Field Communications.

Tuam Retailers are implementing a new electronic loyalty card scheme based on Near Field Communications over ordinary mobile phones. From next week shoppers in Tuam will just have to tap their phones at a terminal near the cash register to get discounts, special offers and bonuses.

The technology behind this is from Zapa Technology. You can see them in Irish coffee retail outlet Insomnia already.

What is Near Field Communication?
It’s a short range (4-10cm distance) communication technology aimed at mobile phones primarily.

Is it like Bluetooth?
This has a shorter setup and requires less power than Bluetooth but is a fair bit slower. Also the devices need to be a lot closer together to work. It is ideal for smaller amounts of information to be transferred quickly.
Another handy element is it can work when one of the devices is not powered. Like a label, a tag or a poster.