BenQ Boards come with NFC technology, which offers teachers an efficient way to log in, pull up their whiteboard, and share lesson materials. Maximising NFC’s potential, the BenQ Board streamlines teaching, setting it apart from all other smart board solutions that limit NFC use to just logging in.

NFC, or near-field communication, is a means for devices like your smartphone to wirelessly transmit data between other NFC-compatible devices¹ such as the BenQ Board. The technology has been around for decades, but it was only in the early 2010s—after several industries had realised its potential to simplify tasks such as data transfer and authentication—that NFC’s widespread adoption began taking off.² NFC’s short range and encryption make intercepting data very difficult. As a result, multinational banks, and even government agencies, have deemed the technology secure for contactless payments.³

As for the education sector, several schools, including top universities such as Duke⁴ and Johns Hopkins⁵, issue NFC-enabled ID cards to their students and academic staff. They can use these IDs to access buildings and rooms, pay for meals and items, and register for campus-related activities. With educational technologies like the BenQ Board finding their way into more and more classrooms, teachers and IT staff can also take advantage of NFC to enhance their overall user experience.

A handful of smart board providers are now marketing their solutions as NFC-enabled devices, but did you know that it was actually BenQ who was the very first innovator to incorporate NFC technology into interactive displays?

As early as 2016, our boards already had built-in NFC readers, which users could tap for instant whiteboard access. With the integration of the BenQ Account Management System (AMS), we were then able to offer a secure and convenient way to log in.

It’s no secret that users dislike passwords. The most common reasons for this aversion include how passwords can be difficult to remember and how entering one every time can feel like a chore.⁶ NFC login gets rid of these burdens.

With one-tap NFC login, schools can implement access security without requiring their teachers to deal with passwords. Compared to other smart boards that offer basic one-tap login, the BenQ Board is the only solution that not only allows the user to log in, but also loads all their personal settings like their wallpaper, widgets, app shortcuts, and bookmarks.

What’s more, teachers also get to securely access their browsing history as well as all their linked cloud storage accounts. This saves them the time and effort it normally takes to log in to each website or cloud service.

Besides logging in, the BenQ Board NFC sensor also offers other useful features designed to improve the overall teaching experience.

Tap and whiteboard: With any of the BenQ Board’s NFC-enabled pens, teachers can simply tap on the sensor to launch the EZWrite whiteboard and start writing.

Tap and share: If teachers have InstaShare 2 installed on their smartphone, they can simply hold their phone to the sensor to instantly cast media from their device without having to manually connect to the same Wi-Fi network used by the BenQ Board.

Some smart board providers allow any user to bind new NFC cards directly from their boards. Without proper guidance from the school’s IT security administrator, this feature can be exploited. BenQ, through AMS, provides another layer of security by giving IT admins a choice on how they want to implement NFC card binding.

Schools that have already issued NFC cards to their teaching staff can ask their teachers to simply log on to AMS and bind their cards to their cloud account. This way, teachers can use any BenQ Board in their school without having to manually bind their card to each and every board on their campus every single time. But if their school follows stricter access protocols, then admins can remove NFC binding permissions from teachers and limit it to only IT staff.

In case an NFC card gets misplaced, teachers or admins (depending on their school’s NFC binding policy) can easily revoke NFC access through AMS. This prevents the misuse of lost cards.

IT admins can also block unauthorised users from tampering with NFC features such as ‘Tap and whiteboard’ and ‘Tap and share’ by switching on Authentication mode on their BenQ Boards. With this setting enabled, only registered users can use their boards.

With NFC on the BenQ Boards, teachers can truly ‘Tap and Teach’ by simply walking into any classroom, tapping their NFC card, and starting their lessons right away.

To learn more about the BenQ Board and its NFC features, contact us and schedule a demo for your school.