NFC may have taken its own sweet time to become mainstream in smartphones, but slowly and steadily it is getting there. Nearly every major Android handsets released in the last one year or so features NFC. Another OS and OEM that has embraced NFC is Nokia’s “burning platform” – Symbian. Nokia has equipped nearly all of its last-generation Symbian devices with NFC, and even released some NFC-featuring accessories to go along with it including the Play 360 portable speakers.
In theory, you can simply touch any NFC equipped smartphone to Nokia’s Play 360 portable speakers to initiate a Bluetooth connection and start playing music. However, for some unknown reason, the NFC pairing feature of the Play 360 does not work with Android devices. Considering that one-touch pairing is one of the highlights of the Play 360 feature, it can be quite a deal breaker for a lot of people.
How To Connect Android Devices To Nokia Play 360 Speaker In One Tap Via NFC
Step 1: By default, most Android devices are able to detect the NFC tag inside the Play 360 portable speakers. However, the NFC tag has been written in such a format that it is not readable by Android devices, due to which they are not able to initiate a Bluetooth connection with the Play 360.
Head over to the Play Store and download Play 360 connector. Open the application, and specify which music application you want to open whenever you tap your Android device with the Play 360.
Step 2: When you first tap your Android device with the Play 360, you will get a pop-up asking which app you want to open – Play 360 Connector or the inbuilt NFC tags application. Select the Play 360 connector app to allow your Android device to connect with the speaker over Bluetooth.
This pop up only comes for the first time when you tap your Android device to the Play 360 speakers. On the taps after this, your Android device will automatically connect to the Play 360 and start playing music.
Conclusion
The Play 360 Connector app will work fine only with Nokia’s Play 360 speakers. It is not yet confirmed whether they will work with the JBL speakers that Nokia released with the Lumia 920.
If you are looking for a portable speaker, then definitely check out the Nokia Play 360 with NFC. Otherwise, Sony also offers some portable speakers with NFC capabilities that you can purchase.