Using NFC Tags and Tap Automations To Trigger Shortcuts

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can use an NFC tag to trigger Actions on your iPhone. 

So this little sticker here is what is called a NFC tag. It is a paper thin little sticker that you can stick to just about anything. You can also buy them in little plastic disks, in things the shape of credit cards, even in things you can hang from a keychain or somewhere else. The idea is if you bring one of these tags and your iPhone together that it can trigger something on your iPhone. Now to be clear here I'm not talking about setting one of these up so somebody else can tap it to get information. I'm talking about setting one of these up that you own and using your own iPhone and then tapping against this will trigger an action that you setup. So this is something for you to use with your iPhone and your NFC tag. So let me show you how this works. 

You set this up in the Shortcuts App. I'm going to launch Shortcuts here and I'm going to go to Automations. Then I'm going to add a new automation. One of the Automations I can add here is NFC. When you do this the first thing you do is scan a Tag. So I'm going to tap scan there and then I'm going to take the tag and tap it to be back of the iPhone. You can see it pops up there with a prompt to name it. So I can name this tag something that i want. I'm just going to name this one Tap. Then Okay. Now you have some choices. One is Run After Confirmation. In other words you tap the tag and it will prompt you on your iPhone screen as to whether or not you want to run the action. Or you can set it to Run Immediately. If you set it Run Immediately you can set it up to Notify when the tag is running. Then you can select to have it notify you, put a little notification on the screen, saying that it recognized the tag and it has run the shortcut. You can have this On, if you like, or you can have it Off  and simply incorporation the notification into the shortcut you're going to run. Then you're going to tap Next.

Now you get to define what happens. You can choose an existing shortcut that you've got or you can create a new one. There also a ton of different examples and things that you can use here. I'm going to choose Create a New Shortcut. Then I'm going to do something very simple here. I'm going to set this up so that when I tap the tag it will turn on Do Not Disturb mode. So you can see Set Focus and then I can set it to turn Do Not Disturb off or on or I can set it to toggle, which is more useful because you can use the same tag to turn it On and Off as much as you want. When you tap here you can actually choose your Focus Mode. So any of the default Focus Modes or anything that you've setup. 

Now what will happen is when I tap my phone and my tag together it's going to turn on Do Not Disturb Mode. You saw it there at the top. I can do it again and it will run it again and turn Do Not Disturb Off. So already you can see the utility here. Instead of having to fumble around with the Control Center or go into Settings you can simply tap your phone against a tag like this. Since this is a sticker I can put it somewhere, like say somewhere on my desk and then tap my iPhone against it and then I should see Do Not Disturb come on and then I'm ready for my meeting or take a nap or do whatever it is I'm  doing. 

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You can set this up to do anything that is in Shortcuts. So here I've got it set to Toggle, Do Not Disturb mode. but I can easily change that to something else. So, for instance, I can search for Workout and say Start Workout. I'll allow access here and I can set this to what i want. So for instance I can have this tag by my front door and I can just tap it when I'm about to go out for a run. Or I can put it by, say, an exercise machine and then set it to start the workout by just tapping my phone and to not having to go and look inside of the Health App to start the workout. 

There are so many other things you can do. Anything in Shortcut. For instance I can have it start a Timer. So I can have a timer start, say, for 15 minutes and then I can place that in some quiet part of my home and tap my iPhone to it and give myself a 15 minute relaxation break. Or I can set it up to start navigation by using the Maps App. So I'll look here in Maps and you can see I've got Open Directions Here. I can open up driving directions from my current location to some destination like work or a regular place that I go. I have this in the car so I can just Start the directions to that location without having to select it. 

Another one I've heard people use is to Show Remote Control. So if you use an Apple TV, you know you can use your iPhone as a remote for the Apple TV. So you can put this sticker right where you watch TV and then you can tap your iPhone to it and it will bring up your remote control for the Apple TV device your select. 

There's also a handy set of controls for Health. You can set it to not only log a workout but log a Health Sample. What is that? Well you can choose something like, for instance, when you eat something or do a test or experience an event or even just drink some water. So if you need to log health things this can be handy to have the sticker where it is convenient to do the logging. 

Another thing you do is you can use this with the phone app. So you can call home and then you can set it to turn On and Off lights. Put the sticker right by the entrance to the room and it is a good alternative than to speak to Siri to do it. In fact you can do it with other systems as well. If you have the Goggle Assisted App on your phone then you have shortcut actions that will tap into that. So you can set it up with Goggle Assisted and just have the words typed in that you would normally speak to Goggle Assisted to say Turn On the Lights in a room.  

But the real strength comes in combining different actions in the Automated Shortcut. So, for instance, here I've got it set to start a timer for 15 minutes, then take the current time and add 15 minutes to it and set Do Not Disturb to go on until that time so in other words turn off do not disturb automatically at the end of that and then play a playlist in the Music App. So I can put this tag by my favorite chair and then tap it to start this relaxation routine. 

Here's one that opens directions and you can choose where to. So you can set it to be a default for work and then it also plays a podcast and I've set it here to ask each time so it will give me a list of my current podcasts. You can use the same one to start a workout by putting the tag near your exercise bike or treadmill and having it play a workout playlist instead. 


So pickup some of these cheap little NFC tags and see how you can use them to help automate things on your iPhone. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.