Any drawbacks to having NFC and SBeam enabled?

**Eclipse2K** · 02-10-2013, 04:28 AM

I decided to enable both of these today and have yet to turn them off. Will I notice a drop in battery life or does it not use any extra battery?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II using Tapatalk 2.

**Fairclough** · 02-10-2013, 05:24 AM

Found this on another board "no.NFC is completely off unless the device is on and unlocked when it is on consumption is very low.

They actually talked about this at IO as well - breaking down battery drain while the device was on and in use NFC accounted for 0.5% of power consumption (out of 100). Again this is while the device was on. Given that it's disabled when the screen is off you're looking at less than that averaged over regular use of the device."

**planoman** · 02-10-2013, 09:28 AM

Using tec tiles on my Note 2 and leave the NFC on all the time and power consumption is indeed low. Have not noticed any difference in battery life.

**tirith** · 02-10-2013, 10:51 AM

S beam turns itaelf off after a while. At least for me

Swyped from my Galaxy Note II on the Now Network

**aquafusiondane** · 02-10-2013, 12:29 PM

Honestly, having S Beam and Android Beam enabled have unnoticeable impact on your battery. It too low to notice anything. Some user claiming NFC enabled have huge impact on their battery. It not going to hurt you to test it out and see what happen

Sent from my T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note 2 on Tapatalk 2

**SpookDroid** · 02-11-2013, 10:00 AM

As with everything, before worrying about battery life ask yourself: Do you need it?

In my case, I don't... Most of my friends are still rocking iPhones or Galaxy SII's, so no NFC for them. I'm the only one in my circle that has NFC in his phone. So, no NFC needed FOR ME. Why have it On all the time? Your case might be different, though...

In any case, NFC is very low in power consumption when not in use. It's sort of the same as the power consumed by the S-Pen circuitry inside your phone.

**donec** · 02-11-2013, 11:07 AM

I am not sure if it is a real concern or not but to me it seems that having NFC and S-Beam or Android Beam on all the time is possibly a security risk. It allows two way access to your phone without paring or password protection.

**SpookDroid** · 02-11-2013, 02:06 PM

But it should, in theory, always ask you to click a confirmation before doing anything... But yeah, NFC and S-Beam are not the safest of technologies out there. HOWEVER, remember what NFC stands for: NEAR FIELD COMM. Near Field. Near. You'd have to be close enough for someone to touch the back of your phone for them to do anything malicious.

BTW, so is walking around with Bluetooth On the entire time... in theory it should ask you to pair first, but it's also a security risk. Yet, most people don't even know an On/Off toggle exists. (OK, maybe not 'most' hehe but a lot of people just leave their BTs On and worse, visible)

**SenseMonkey** · 02-11-2013, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by SpookDroid

But it should, in theory, always ask you to click a confirmation before doing anything... But yeah, NFC and S-Beam are not the safest of technologies out there. HOWEVER, remember what NFC stands for: NEAR FIELD COMM. Near Field. Near. You'd have to be close enough for someone to touch the back of your phone for them to do anything malicious.

BTW, so is walking around with Bluetooth On the entire time... in theory it should ask you to pair first, but it's also a security risk. Yet, most people don't even know an On/Off toggle exists. (OK, maybe not 'most' hehe but a lot of people just leave their BTs On and worse, visible)

I leave my off cause i think it's a security risk unless im not using it but thats just me. And bluetooth is always on here too but since i am more tech savvy mine is only visible to my paired headphones.

Sent from my Behemoth of a phone, the Galaxy Note 2