The Difference Between RFID and NFC

RFID and NFC

NFC is developed on the basis of RFID. In essence, NFC is not much different from RFID, and it is based on the signal transmission between two objects with similar geographical locations. RFID card refers to non-contact electronic cards/labels, including ID cards, IC cards, NFC cards and other electronic cards/labels. Their main difference lies in the working frequency band. RFID cards also include electronic cards/tags in other working frequency bands, such as 915MHz, 2.4GHz and other frequency bands.

Difference between NFC and RFID

However, there is still a difference between NFC and RFID. NFC technology adds a point-to-point communication function, which can quickly establish P2P (point-to-point) wireless communication between Bluetooth devices. NFC devices seek each other and establish communication connections. P2P communication devices are peer-to-peer, while RFID communication devices are master-slave relationships. There are some differences in other technical details. Compared with RFID technology, NFC has some characteristics such as short distance, high bandwidth and low energy consumption.

1. NFC is only limited to the frequency band of 13.56MHz, while RFID has a low frequency (125KHz to 135KHz), high frequency (13.56MHz) and ultra-high frequency (860MHz to 960MHz).

2. Effective working distance: NFC (less than 10cm, so it has high security), and RFID distance ranges from several meters to tens of meters.

3. Because it also works at 13.56MHz, NFC is compatible with the existing contactless smart card technology, so many manufacturers and related groups support NFC, while there are many RFID standards, and the unification is complicated, so the corresponding technical standards can only be adopted when special industries have special needs!

4. Application: RFID is more used in production, logistics, tracking and asset management, while NFC plays a huge role in the fields of access control, public transportation and mobile payment.