Creating a model of a self-service mall powered by nfc tags with React Native. (Part 1).

NFC stands for near-field communication, and it allows phones, tablets, laptops, and other devices to share data with other NFC-equipped devices easily. NFC technology is pretty common these days and features in most high-end smartphones. As well as phone to phone communication, small little NFC tags can also be used to store and transfer information. You will probably have noticed small NFC tags next to advertisements near bus stops, stickers in shops, or may have even come across the clever idea of using NFC enabled business cards.

In this first entry of the series, I will discuss the end goal, the requirements and the inter-connectivity between the different parts.

Overview

We will be creating two apps, one for the users and one for the admin.

Admin App

The admin app will be used for configuring the tags and managing the shop. There we can see the content of the carts, the number of each items remaining and the number of payments made from each users.

Users App

This would enable the user to add products to their cart using an NFC-enabled phone. An possible improvement on this project is to add barcode scanning as another method of adding a product to the cart, but that is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

Why React Native?

React Native is a powerful platform for building cross-platform apps that have the native look and feel users love.

This project is not complex enough that the difference in performance between React Native and Native apps would matter.