How to activate NFC on Xiaomi

The acronym NFC is the acronym for Near Field Communication (in Italian translates as “communication in proximity” ) and identifies a technology that allows the transfer of data between two devices, located at a short distance from each other, in wireless mode. The difference between NFC and many other wireless technologies, including Bluetooth, is that the identification, pairing and authentication between the devices involved are completely automatic and do not require the entry of a PIN or password to enable the data exchange.

As you will soon discover, in fact, NFC technology is often used to perform the rapid association of devices or to make payments in physical stores without running security risks: the data, in fact, transit in an encrypted manner and the receiver and the transmitter are activated at almost the same time. Furthermore, the very short distance required to allow NFC-like communication (in some cases, the devices involved must be in physical contact with each other) adds an additional level of security.

How do you say? Do you own a Xiaomi device with NFC connectivity and were you just wondering how to use this technology? Then I would say that you are in the right place: in this guide, in fact, I will explain both how to activate NFC on Xiaomi, and how to concretely use the technology in question to exchange data and make payments. Ready to get started? Very well, then let’s start right away! I wish you a good read.

Index

• Check for NFC
• How to activate NFC on Xiaomi
• How to use NFC
  • Pairing audio devices
  • Payments
  • File transfer

Check for NFC

Before moving on, I must, unfortunately, warn you that not all Xiaomi smartphones are equipped with NFC connectivity. Therefore, I recommend that you first check the availability of the chip in question: in this regard, you can use a specific app for the purpose, called NFC Check by Tapkey, available for free on the Play Store.

To get it, open the Google market by visiting the link I just provided you from your device and press the Install button. Now, wait a few moments for MIUI to verify the integrity of the downloaded application and, once the check is complete, press the Open button to start the app (which does not require special permissions to work).

After a few moments, you should get the verification result: if you see NFC is activated or NFC is built into your device but not activated messages, it means that your smartphone is perfectly compatible with NFC technology.

For more information about the supported features, tap on the More details item, located immediately below. If, on the other hand, you see the message No NFC module was found on your device, unfortunately, your Xiaomi smartphone does not have NFC connectivity, I’m sorry.

How to activate NFC on Xiaomi

After making sure of the availability of NFC technology, you can activate it on your device in a very simple way. So, to begin with, take your Xiaomi smartphone and call up the Android notification area by swiping downwards starting from the top of the screen.

Now, make a second swipe to view all the quick buttons: locate the one related to NFC and press it to “light up” it and activate the corresponding function.

Alternatively, if you have configured the MIUI operating system to use the new Control Center (in Settings> Display> Control Center and notification area ), open the latter by swiping down from the top corner on the right of the screen, make a second swipe down on the quick buttons and press the one corresponding to NFC, to activate it.

If you wish, you can also reach the same result from the MIUI Settings: therefore, open the latter by tapping the symbol of the resident gear on the Home screen or in the drawer of the device, reach the Connection and sharing section and move the lever corresponding to the item NFC from OFF to ON. That’s all!

How to use NFC

As for Xiaomi smartphones, there are mainly three ways of using NFC technology: pairing of wireless audio devices, payments and file transfer. Find everything explained below.

Pairing audio devices

If you have a Bluetooth device compatible with NFC connectivity (e.g. some earphones or headphones of this type), you can pair it with the Xiaomi smartphone very easily, simply by placing it in correspondence with the NFC chip installed on the latter.

So, first of all, make sure that both NFC and Bluetooth are active on your smartphone: call up the Android notification area or the MIUI Control Center and make sure that the Bluetooth and NFC icons are colored, otherwise press them to “light them up”.

Next, take the NFC device to pair with the phone, turn it on, set it to pairing mode (generally, just long-press the power key, until the status LED starts flashing rapidly) and place it on the NFC chip smartphone.

Finally, make sure that the screen of the latter is unlocked and follow the procedure that is proposed to you, to start the pairing between the devices: generally, it all boils down to pressing the Yes and Pair buttons, visible on the phone screen, to finalize the connection.

Payments

Xiaomi smartphones equipped with NFC chips can be used without problems to pay in contactless mode through the payment apps (Google Pay and Bancomat Pay, just to give you a couple of examples) that provide this possibility.

Generally, it is sufficient to make sure that the shop where you are located is equipped with a POS compatible with the payment circuit chosen and, after configuring your credit card in the dedicated app, simply unlock the phone and bring the latter close to the POS, to carry out the transaction.

To give you a concrete example, let me explain how the contactless payment system works combined with the Google Pay service promoted by the big Mountain View company. To begin with, make sure you have a payment card at hand issued by a banking institution participating in the service and belonging to one of the supported circuits (currently Visa, Mastercard and American Express) and to remember the password of the Google account configured on the device.

Now, take your Xiaomi smartphone equipped with NFC, open the Play Store and search for the Google Pay app, using the search bar located at the top; when you have identified it, click on the Install button, in order to start the download. If you are reading this guide directly from the device in question, you can follow this link, to speed things up.

Once the app download and the integrity check have been completed, press the Open button, in order to start it, tap the Start button and indicate whether or not to allow the use of the location services by the app, by pressing the button Allow while using the app, or click Reject.

Now, to start configuring a new payment card, tap the Add a card button and choose whether you want to insert a debit or credit card; if not, tap first on the Payments button and then on the + Payment method button, located at the bottom.

Subsequently, follow the instructions that are shown to you to configure the payment card: enter the card number in the appropriate text field, fill in the MM / YY field indicating the year and month of expiry of the card (if, for example, the deadline is August 2022, you will need to enter the numbers 0822 ) and enter the CVC code of the card (located on the back) in the appropriate field.

Once you have entered the necessary information, check that the name of the cardholder and that all other information is consistent with what you see on the card itself and, when you are done, tap the Save button, to add the card to your Google account and, consequently, to Google Pay.

If everything went well, you should see a message about the ability to use the card for both online and in-store purchases; if you were told that you cannot use Google Pay in stores, it means that the card is not among those supported or that, for security reasons, the device cannot be used for payments via NFC (which happens, for example, in presence of root permissions ).

Once Google Pay is set up, make sure that Google Pay is set as the default payment system and that the correct security element is set on your phone.

So, reach the Settings menu > MIUI connection and sharing, make sure that the lever corresponding to the NFC item is active (otherwise do it yourself), touch the item Security element location and tap the Use HCE Wallet option, located in the next menu; now, touch the Touch & Pay options > Default app for payments and select the Google Pay item, from the panel that appears.

The game is practically done! To make payments via POS, simply unlock your phone and bring it close to the Google Pay-enabled terminal, even without opening the app.

Within a couple of seconds (depending on the speed of the internet connection in use by the merchant), the transaction should be completed automatically: when this happens, the phone will show a notification message, indicating the Pay Success. For more information on payments with Google Pay, I refer you to reading the tutorial I dedicated to the topic.

Note: contactless payment cards also use NFC technology to interface with enabled terminals. More info here.

File transfer

The file transfer via NFC / Android Beam is supported by all Xiaomi smartphones running MIUI version equal to or older than 10. Starting with Android Q, in fact, the transfer of files and data via the Android Beam app has been eliminated from Android, in favor of the more flexible Sharing Nearby, or Nearby Share (which does not use NFC but a combination of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, just like Apple’s AirDrop ).

However, if your smartphone is updated to MIUI 10 (you can easily check this by going to the Settings menu > System info of the device), you can receive and send files to and from an NFC device using the Android Beam app.

Doing so is really simple: first, make sure that NFC is active on both devices involved, then take the device that contains the file to be transferred, open it, tap on the share icon and then on the Android Beam symbol, which appears in the panel displayed later.

At this point, unlock the “recipient” device and place the two devices back-to-back, overlapping them: after a few moments, you should see a notification containing the transfer request via Android Beam.

When this happens, you just have to confirm your willingness to proceed and wait for the transfer to be successful: the file will be stored in the Download folder of the recipient device.

Since this is a fairly obsolete option and probably unavailable on your smartphone, you would do well to read my guide on how to transfer files to Android, in which I explained how to best use the Sharing feature in the vicinity of which I have you. spoken at the beginning of the section.