NFC Card Emulation with a Completely Dead Battery Possible with some BlackBerry Devices

For those of you who own NFC capable BlackBerry smartphones did you know that it may be able to process NFC transactions when with a completely dead battery? Not all the NFC capable BlackBerrys can do it though. When in low battery mode, all BlackBerry phones will be able to perform NFC card emulation functionality but when it comes to a dead battery, only the BlackBerry Curve 9380 and Blackberry Bold 9790 can be used.

To be clear, low battery mode starts when the smartphone OS turns off the user interface due to the battery being labeled as ‘low’. The smartphone appears to be off to the user but internally the Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) is still on. Dead battery mode on the other hand starts when there is no longer enough battery to keep even the PMIC on. Usually for a low battery mode to sink into dead batter would take about four to five hours according to RIM. If you go to the NFC Settings screen, you will notice that there is a section entitled “Allow NFC Transactions” labeled “When Powered Off”.

This setting will also affect the behavior of the device. Do let us know if you have tried using the NFC when the phone was completely dead. Admittedly it would be hard to differentiate it being dead or low on battery but these are the guidelines provided from the BlackBerry developers blog so if you do want to give it a try, make sure you drain the battery for a long amount of time before applying it for a transaction. Do bring some money along just in case and let us know how it went with a comment below.

Pradeep Chandrasekaran
Categories: Cellphones, General
Tags: BlackBerry, NFC