NFC readers (with RED cert) and NFC cards

[lamle]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the NFC field so please bear with me for these beginner questions.

We have an IoT device and its main board is the ESP32 board.

Previously we connected to a PN532 breakout board to encrypt/write and read from Mifare DESFire EV1 cards. But since the boards do not have RED certification so we are searching for alternative modules at STMicroelectronics.

I'm having a look at this board X-NUCLEO-NFC08A1. I see it has the RED certification. But, is it the correct NFC writer/reader that I should use? Because I see in the picture "for evaluation only". If not.. what should we purchase to write/read with NFC smart cards?

On the other hand, what is the NFC card that you officially support? I'm checking here for the NFC cards but it looks like these are only the 'chips' of the cards (not the ready-made cards to give out to end-users instantly?)

Thank you all in advanced.
Lam.

[Dave D · Accepted solution]

Hi,

STMicroelectronics is a silicon vendor, not a final end user product vendor. Hence the boards which are sold by ST are only to discover and evaluate a chip. The x-nucleo-nfc08 board allows to evaluate and prototype solutions using the ST25R3916B NFC reader chip. If you want to evaluate and prototype NFC to develop your own solution, this is a very good choice. If you plan to use a final end user NFC reader, you should buy a NFC reader product from NFC reader manufacturer (For example Feig or others...) 

Regards

Dave