Using Wallet.app to open doors with NFC reader

G'day.

At my office the doors are locked with an NFC reader. We carry around a little NFC tag on our key chains which will read out a number and this then will open the door if the number matches a number in the database.

I am tired of carrying around the tag, people keep loosing it, forgetting it and it would be nice to open the door using a Phone - which we tend to always have on us.

So I used a credit card which is NFC enabled to readout the NFC information, added this number to the database and can now open doors using my credit card. This is pretty cool. If I forget my keys (most likely they will be on the desk but silly me left the desk without them), I may have my wallet with me.

Then I tried Wallet.app on my iPhone and select the same credit card. However the door doesn't open. When looking in the door software I noticed that the tags will always transmit the same number. So does my credit card. However Wallet.app will read out 4 readings (or maybe just one very long one) and they are always different. So I can not make them match with the door database.

Any ideas how to make this work? Can I give somehow wallet.app an NFC number which I can then add to my door database? Or how come the credit card and the very same one in wallet.app don't match?

Thanks for your help! Would be neat if I could make this work out. This will make a lot of people happy at my office!

Cheers!
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Posted by
Walzl
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  • I totally agree I have the same problem. But I couldn’t find a solution. Maybe there is some one who can create an app that could do this

    —
    wiebelbeet

  • I understand your problem and fully agree to that.

    However, i have implemented a workaround here, which works flawless since years.

    I‘ve put a NFC sticker next to my door. I also have added a workflow/shortcut that triggers when the phone is next to the sticker and simply opens the door.

    Not the same, management gets harder for many devices, but it works.

    —
    Deemer

  • Deemer and where's the security of it? The phone reads the nfc stick, and then? Send a response to a server or what? What if the service of the server is not running?

    —
    freeridre

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Make sure that you have NFC on, which is obvious but may not be on. Then, may I ask how you are trying to unlock the door. If you are not, I think that you should try double-clicking the side button like when you would do it by an NFC cash register, as that would transmit NFC data.
Posted by
iPadProPerson
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The number of credit card on iPhone is dynamic, so you cannot get the same number in multiple reads. Fortunately, just replace the credit card to a transit card (Suica), and the card number will be fixed.
Posted by
HaloZheng
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  • I add a suica card to apple wallet but it doesn’t work, can you be more specific? A special suica card is required?

    —
    RealDream

  • Didn’t work for me either. Neither did TAP and Clipper…

    —
    nv2020

  • Same problem with me, I have tryed transit “TAP” card, but this card has also dynamic number which changes all the time. I think that all apple wallet transit card have dynamic number…

    When I hold this transit “TAP” card close to my access door which works on 13.56 mhz NFC cards, keychains, tags…it continues to beep all the time because it chages the code every second or faster.

    Please can someone explain me why apple dosen’t allow us users to issue virtual NFC card where we can write ten digit number to that card and add logo by our choise and add card name?

    —
    Sule1
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hello! The same question to Apple company. 21 century and we can not use NFC on the full power. Normally just one solve - add transport card to wallet and use ID of this card in your base. Transport card have static ID.
Posted by
sjdhskjalfjsd
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  • Can you confirm what transport card you are using? As I have tried multiple and they all use a dynamic “card serial number” Would be really ideal to use the iphone for access control applications.

    —
    Maxtaiani
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I have similar issue, I would like to open door using apple wallet. Currently the door opens using card (RFID). I was able to add a card to apple wallet. I want a guide on the following next steps :

  • How I add ID or number to the pass? to transmit the number to the NFC reader to allow access ?
  • is there a specific type of NFC reader to use with apple wallet? or can I use any NFC reader?

Thank you

Posted by
futaim
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  • How did you add a card to your Apple Wallet that has the RFID key?

    —
    kpatl

  • What type of card have you successfully added to your phone? Any card I have used emits a random number each time when the phone is held up against the Access control card reader.

    In relation to your questions I’m guessing you want the iphone to be able to have the “sites” facility code. Which majority of access control systems use as it’s a unique number. I don’t believe there is an app that can do this apart from HID

    So far I can only think we can send the most basic card data which is serial number only.

    I am really interested in getting this to work so if you have managed to add a card with a fixed number. Please let me know how you have/what you have done to achieve this.

    thanks!

    —
    Maxtaiani
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The credit/debit cards stored on your iPhone/Apple Watch uses a dynamic system to avoid fraud. However, if you open up any transit card, it will only show one static serial.

That said, open up any transit card, read it on the NFC reader, add it to your database, done.

Posted by
Nivek_J
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  • Can you tell me what transit card are you using?

    —
    RealDream

  • What transit card did you use to achieve this? I’ve tried a couple and they’re sending out a dynamic serial. Thanks

    —
    Maxtaiani

  • Not any transit card will work: TAP, Suica and Clipper did not work for me this way …

    (trying to activate my own RFID enabled electric car-charging station from iPhone / Apple Watch).

    I am able to get the transit card into the iOS wallet ok, the charger recognizes there is a card, will allow me to add it (multiple times, if tried ;-) but does not recognize it later, due to the non-static code …

    —
    nv2020

Hello!

Had anyone a chance to make this work? Maybe there is an application that can emit static cards?

Posted by
zahreva
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Same problem with me, I have tryed transit “TAP” card, but this card has also dynamic number which changes all the time. I think that all apple wallet transit card have dynamic number…

When I hold this transit “TAP” card close to my access door which works on 13.56 mhz NFC cards, keychains, tags…it continues to beep all the time because it chages the code every second or faster.

Please can someone explain me why apple dosen’t allow us users to issue virtual NFC card where we can write ten digit number to that card and add logo by our choise and add card name?

Posted by
Sule1
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Hi, I had the same thought. The problem is the NFC Entitlement (=> you cannot generate custom NFC-Passes) and the Apple VAS protocol. As it‘s proprietary and only available for MFi members. In such case, I‘d love to be such member, but the process behind seems to be complicated :/ I guess, walket encrypts the data sent by the pass using a key every time, so it can’t be shared always the same string…

would love to see more flexibility here!

Posted by
jannisg4g
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Hello, Why I can not make a NCF tag from my iPhone? Why iPhone can not write NFC in shortcuts? Maybe for sharing quick information about yourself just tapping another iPhone. Michal

Posted by
michal_bany
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  • incredibile how they probably took this comment and brought to iOS 17... while keeping it locked

    —
    liuk50
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Did you ever figure this out? I’d like to use my phone to function as my employee access card!

Posted by
Soap223
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I'm trying the same thing also, but Apple did not think on this. It was very useful if we could set something in wallet to act as an regular NFC card.

Posted by
Larry_BML
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  • It can be done by changing a mobile phone, such as mi oppo huawei vivo 1+, these can meet your needs

    —
    xiaoheshang
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Unbelievable... Is there really no way to get a static UUID back from a transit-card?

Posted by
tsdfsdf
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I tried a year or so ago to add my iPhone 12 Pro to my access control system. I was to grab ids from the phone and add them to user records. I was never able to get them to work. Today for no good reason I tried with the same iPhone and os 15.5.

I was able to unlock my doors. It took multiple attempts as the iPhone cycled through ids before it hits the matching id in my access control software. I was pretty surprised and I'm now wondering how to get it to use correct sooner/consistently.

While attempting to gain access my Apple Card is the visible card in the interface...

I'm opening to trying any ideas.

Posted by
bdgBerkshire
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I found new to me documentation on how to build a pass for Wallet.

It had this detail which looks like what I want to work on.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/walletpasses/pass/nfc?language=objc

I need to finish up a pressing project but I will definitely dig into this as my next project.

This should work. I can already unlock the my doors with my phone it just runs through a series of keys before it sends a matching key. I think I just need to establish which key belongs to my building so that there are fewer errors or turn off the beep on failure...

Posted by
bdg2015
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  • But aren‘t the keys random generated? I also had this thought but whenever I tried the keys never match to one of those before 🤔

    —
    tsdfsdf

  • Please keep us up2date

    —
    tsdfsdf

  • Hello! I just found this documentation and also my already 1 year old post. Have you had a chance to look into this? It looks promising but not particularly easy to develop.

    —
    Walzl

Maybe this site can create such an door opening NFC card? https://passninja.com/

Posted by
fredderf
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  • I think passninja closed their doors. Tried example cards 1-2 weeks ago, didn‘t work anymore.

    —
    tsdfsdf

  • Yes, I just tried to sign up without success. Any alternatives?

    —
    Walzl
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