Does Android lollipop have problems with NFC reading of Mifare Cards?

[Greg Greg]

I have been using the "NXP Lite Sample App" to test cards.
All worked well with a Samsung Galaxy S3 with Jellybean, it easily reads my cards as Classic 4K and recovers the data correctly.

When I began trying the same thing with a Galaxy S4 with Lollipop -it detects the card, but instead of reading it, posts a message: "NFC card type not supported" - and in Android Studio the LogCat information only shows "This is a NXP card".

When I searched this forum the only mention of lollipop is a problem reading...

Any thoughts as whether it is a difference in the NFC reader from S3 to S4, or a difference in the OS from Jellybean to Lollipop?

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[Greg Greg]

I can answer some of my own question:
It appears that Samsung have changed their NFC chip in the S4 from NXP to Broadcom:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+S4+Teardown/13947
http://www.nfc-phones.org/samsung-galaxy-s4/
So it may not be possible to read Mifare Classic cards...
Greg

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[David92]

Hello Greg,

Yes that is true. SSG S4 has a broadcom chip inside it, which causes some issues with certain MIFARE cards. As you mentioned there are issues with MIFARE Classic not being detected. But there might be also some wrong detection with the particular SmartPhone, for e.g. Ultralight getting detected as NTAG. For the latter I am not sure.

Best,
David

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[Greg Greg]

Thanks for the confirmation David, it looks as though NXP got the contract back for the S5 and S6.
It is just unfortunate that we have a preponderance of S4s here at the moment.
:o)
I can also confirm that there is no problem with Lollipop, as it works happily on a Sony mobile.

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