Alongside the other two ‘hardware’ additions to the Sony Xperia Smart Extras range, Sony have also announced the arrival of exciting new product – Xperia SmartTags into the Smart Extras family.
SmartTags are basically tags that use NFC (near field communication) technology to communicate with any Android smartphone capable of using NFC. The Xperia SmartTags can be configured to change the profile on a mobile handset when the phone touches the tag. As an example, you could take one tag and configure it so that when you swipe it with your phone, the tag changes the phone profile to turn on WiFi, turn the phone onto silent, open an app and so on. So perhaps you use Google Navigation in the car but, you dont have that app open constantly. Well, configure a SmartTag and pop it into your car. When you get into your car, swipe your phone and the tag will turn on the sat nav for you. Obviously, thats a simplified example,you could have the tag open a number of apps, turn on Bluetooth or even put your phone onto silent mode whilst you drive. There doesn’t seem to be a limit to how many tasks/apps the tags can control at one time although, this may be the case and will become apparent as more details emerge on the funky new tags.
A fuller explanation of how NFC works with mobile handsets is linked to in this article about NFC.
As far as we’re aware, the Xperia S will ship with 4 tags in the box, each can be programmed/configured seperately for the ultimate in swiping action!