Understand the strengths and limitations of each technology to make the right choice.
NFC and QR codes do the same job: open a web page on a customer's phone, with no app to install. NFC uses a magnetic field, the QR code uses the camera. Our products carry both, because neither technology on its own covers every phone.
The smartphone gets within a few centimeters of the NFC chip and data is transmitted instantly — no app, no scan. The same technology as contactless payment.
Response time: less than 0.1 seconds
Lifespan: 400,000 uses minimum
Compatible with iPhone (7+) and Android (2016+)
No battery or power supply required
The user opens their camera, frames the QR Code, and the link opens automatically. Understood and used by everyone since the pandemic.
Compatibility: 100% of smartphones
Scan distance: up to 1 meter
Production cost: almost zero
Customizable with logo and colors
Separately, each technology has its limitations. Together, they offer a universal solution.
A simple tap and the page opens. The smoothest experience for your equipped customers.
QR Code ensures that 100% of your customers can interact, even without NFC.
No customer left behind. Everyone uses the technology that suits them best.
Every Tap2Star product includes an NFC chip and a QR Code. Result: 100% compatibility with all smartphones on the market, with no compromise on user experience.
Both journeys take under two seconds and end in the same place. What they do to get there has nothing in common.
An NFC chip is passive: it contains no battery and no capacitor, and draws nothing at all until a phone comes near. That is what explains its lifespan — there is nothing that can go flat, and nothing to replace.
Nor does it need a network. The chip connects to nothing: it recites an address, just as a printed label would. A plate therefore works exactly the same in a basement with no coverage or in a dead zone.
The distinction matters, and nobody ever spells it out: it is the page that needs a connection, not the chip. If your customer has no signal when they tap, the notification appears but the page is slow to load, or fails.
The consequence is very concrete. In a basement, a car park, a vaulted cellar or a room with thick walls, it is not your plate that is the problem: it is the network. Offering customers your wifi settles the matter, and beats moving a product that works perfectly well.
"Works with every phone" is a convenient phrase. Here is exactly what it covers, model by model.
| Phone | NFC reading | QR code |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone XS, XR and later | Yes, even on a locked screen, with nothing to turn on | Yes |
| iPhone 7, 8 and X (iOS 11 and above) | Yes, with the screen on and unlocked | Yes |
| iPhone 6s and earlier | No: the chip exists but stays reserved for Apple Pay | Yes |
| Mid-range and high-end Android, 2016 onwards | Yes, almost without exception | Yes |
| Entry-level Android | Varies: NFC is the first component dropped to hit a price | Yes |
Then there is the most common case, and the most invisible: NFC switched off in the settings. On Android it may be off by default, or have been turned off to save battery. The customer holds up their phone, nothing happens, and they conclude your plate does not work.
Two rarer nuisances: a very thick case, which pushes the antenna beyond its useful range, and the metal plates of magnetic car mounts stuck to the back of the phone, which disturb the field exactly as a stainless steel counter would.
In every one of these cases, the QR code printed on the same product takes over, with nobody having to understand or adjust anything.
No moving parts, no power supply: an NFC chip is rated for several hundred thousand reads. At twenty taps a day, that figure comfortably outlasts the business itself.
Its weak point is not the chip, which measures less than a square millimetre, but the copper antenna around it. Repeated bending eventually breaks it — which is what happens to cards kept in a wallet, and never to a rigid plate stuck to a counter.
A QR code does not wear out: it is a pattern, not a component. Its lifespan is that of its surface and its ink. A code printed on paper and left in the sun fades within months; engraved or sealed under resin, it lasts for years.
Its real strength lies elsewhere: the error-correcting code. A QR code stays readable with close to a third of its surface scratched, dirtied or covered. That is what lets it survive a bar counter far better than you would expect.
On our plates, the epoxy resin protects both at once: it encases the chip and its antenna, and seals the code under a surface that can be cleaned without damaging it.
A QR code costs nothing. It is a printed pattern: once the product is made, adding a code or leaving it out comes to the same price. Nothing electronic, no component to source.
An NFC chip does. You need the chip itself, the copper antenna, the encapsulation that protects the assembly, and a check in production to confirm every product responds before it ships. The extra unit cost runs to tens of cents, more on short runs.
That is the underlying explanation behind many catalogues: a QR-only product is markedly cheaper to make, and allows a lower headline price. Commercially, the reasoning holds.
It holds up less well on your side of the counter. A customer who gets nothing when they hold up their phone is a review lost, and a review is worth far more than the few cents saved on the chip.
Framing this as "NFC or QR code" assumes you have to pick one. In reality the two do not answer at the same moment: NFC is the shortest path when it works, the QR code is the one that always works.
A tap takes one gesture and no decision. A scan means opening the camera, aiming, then confirming — three seconds more, and three chances to give up. At a counter where the customer is in a hurry, that gap counts.
But NFC fails silently. It shows no error message: nothing simply happens, and it is your product the customer judges. The QR code printed alongside turns that silent failure into an immediate fallback, without them having to work out why.
That is why we put both on every product, with no option and no surcharge. The QR code is not decoration, nor a cut-price alternative: it is the safety net for NFC.
This is not a thought experiment. As of 25 August 2026, excluding bots, 80% of the reads recorded on our products came through the QR code against 20% by NFC. The safety net is used four times more often than the main route.
Each of our guides covers one aspect of NFC technology applied to everyday products.
The exact route through the settings, on iPhone and Android alike, and what happens when the answer is no.
Why the chip does not wear out, what actually limits it, and the gap between a thin film and epoxy resin.
Why a metal surface stops a chip from responding, and how shielding settles the question.
What locking an NFC chip changes, and exactly what it prevents.
Discover our NFC + QR Code products and start collecting more reviews today.