Noble Father Creations
NFC Digital Experiences · Dapper Dad
How to program your chip.
Five steps. Thirty seconds.
Every piece we make has a chip sealed inside it. This is the complete guide to putting anything you want on that chip — and changing it, free, forever, from your own phone.
A What's actually inside your piece?
There is a chip in there. You'd never know.
Embedded directly in the resin while it cures. Invisible from the outside, completely sealed and waterproof — until you tap it and the portal opens.
The chip is smaller than a dime
Thinner than paper. It is a tiny microchip wired to a flat copper antenna coil. That is the whole device. There is no battery, no charging, nothing to wear out.
When you hold your phone near it, your phone throws out a small radio field. The coil absorbs just enough of that energy to wake the chip up, the chip hands over its data, and your phone acts on it. Then it goes back to sleep.
What it holds
| Capacity | 1–4 KB — plenty for any link, message or contact card |
| Power draw | Zero. Wakes only on tap |
| Read speed | Milliseconds |
| Write speed | Under 2 seconds |
| Rewrites | 100,000+ cycles |
| Range | About 1 inch — no accidental reads |
One honest caveat
A tag holds a small amount of data — almost always a link. It does not hold the website itself. If the link dies, the tap goes nowhere. That is why a permanent destination you control (your own domain, or a Linktree) beats a temporary share link.
B iPhone vs Android
Same chip. Different zone.
The single most common reason a tap "doesn't work" is that the phone's antenna was never actually over the chip. Here is where it lives on each.
iPhone
Hold the top edge of your phone to the chip.
- iPhone 7 and newer.
- iPhone XS and newer read tags in the background — no app needed.
- iPhone 7 through X: open NFC Tools first, then tap.
- To write a chip you always need the NFC Tools app, on every model.
- Hold completely still for one to two seconds.
Android
Hold the back centre of your phone to the chip.
- Most Android phones from about 2015 onward.
- Turn NFC on in Settings first — it is not always on by default.
- Some phones want NFC Tools open before they'll write.
- A few models sit the antenna nearer the camera. Slide around slowly to find it.
- Hold completely still for one to two seconds.
Turning NFC on — iPhone
- iPhone 7–X: Settings → General → NFC → toggle on.
- iPhone XS and newer: NFC is always on. Nothing to enable.
- Writing always needs the NFC Tools app, on every model.
Turning NFC on — Android
- Settings → Connected devices → Connection preferences → NFC.
- Or pull down the notification shade and tap the NFC tile.
- Some Samsung and older phones: Settings → More → NFC.
C Step one: get the app
One free app. That's all you need.
NFC Tools by wakdev. Free, no account, no signup, no ads in the way. It is the same app on iPhone and Android, and it is the one every instruction on this page assumes you are holding.
iPhone — App Store
- Open the App Store.
- Search "NFC Tools".
- Look for the orange icon by wakdev — it is the popular one.
- Tap GET. It's free.
Android — Google Play
- Open Google Play.
- Search "NFC Tools".
- Look for the orange icon by wakdev.
- Tap INSTALL. It's free.
Other apps that also work
NFC TagWriter by NXP · TagInfo by NXP · Trigger by Dautomation (Android). They all write the same standard format, so a tag written in one reads fine everywhere. This guide sticks to NFC Tools because it is free on both platforms and the menus match.
Does my phone even have NFC?
Almost certainly yes. Nearly every Android phone since around 2015 has it, and every iPhone from the 7 onward. The quickest check on Android is to search your Settings for "NFC" — if a toggle appears, you have it. On iPhone there is nothing to check on XS and newer; it is simply always there.
If no NFC toggle exists anywhere in Android Settings, that particular phone doesn't have the hardware, and no app can add it.
D The universal write
Learn this once. It never changes.
Every single thing on this site — all 120+ of them — is the same five moves. Only the record type and the value change. Learn the spine here and every recipe becomes a two-line instruction.
Open NFC Tools → Write
The main screen offers Read, Write, Other and My saved tags. Tap Write.
You land on a screen with three buttons: Add a record, More options, and the big Write button.
Tap "Add a record"
This opens the record-type picker — the long list of everything a tag can hold. The four you'll use most:
- URL / URI — for links. This is the one, 90% of the time.
- Text — for messages, poems, notes, mantras.
- Contact — for a full vCard business card.
- Wi-Fi network — for guest Wi-Fi auto-connect (Android).
The full list also holds Custom URL / URI, Application, Social networks, Video, Search, File, Mail, Phone number, SMS, FaceTime, Location, Address, Payment link, Bluetooth and Data — scroll for all of them.
Enter your value → OK
Type or paste exactly what you want the chip to open, then confirm with OK. The record now sits in a list on the Write screen.
Always start a link with https://
Not www., not bare text. https:// is what
tells the phone "this is a website, open it." Paste rather than type — one wrong
character and the tap goes nowhere.
Tap Write, hold the phone to the chip
The app says "Approach an NFC tag". Now put the right part of your phone against the piece: top edge on iPhone, back centre on Android.
Hold completely still for one to two seconds. Moving mid-write is the single most common cause of a write error.
Green check — then test it
A green confirmation means it's written. Now tap the piece again as a normal read. Your link or message should open instantly.
If it works, you're done. Want it to say something else next week? Repeat these same five steps. Writing again simply overwrites — there is nothing to erase first.
The chip evolves with you
New mix? Reprogram. New project? Reprogram. New chapter? New love? Reprogram. Forever, free, from your phone, as many times as you want. You are not stuck. You are not fixed. Neither is your chip.
E Ten ideas to get you started
Not sure what to program? Start here.
The ten that people reach for first. Every one of them is a full recipe — tap through for the exact record type, the value template and the gotchas.
F The index
Everything you can put on a chip.
Search it, filter it, tap any card for the exact record type and a value template you can copy straight into the app.
H Locked vs unlocked
The most important thing on this page.
One of these is flexible forever. One is permanent. Know which is which before you tap anything in the Other tab.
Unlocked — what you have now
Your chip arrives from Noble Father Creations already unlocked. You can reprogram it as many times as you want, forever, for free, from your phone.
This is the default, and it is what we recommend for almost everyone. Your life changes. Your chip should too.
Locked — permanent and irreversible
Locking makes a chip read-only, permanently. It cannot be undone. Not by you, not by us, not by the manufacturer, not by any app or any tool that exists.
Use it only for content that will genuinely never change: a fixed emergency contact, a memorial, a business card you are completely certain about.
Locking cannot be undone. Ever.
There is no unlock. There is no reset. There is no factory tool. A locked chip holds whatever it held at the moment you locked it, for the rest of its physical life.
Before you lock anything: write the content, tap the chip, and confirm it opens exactly the right thing. Then wait a day. Then decide.
How to lock a chip — if you're absolutely sure
- Open NFC Tools.
- Tap Other on the main menu.
- Tap Lock tag.
- Read the warning the app gives you. Read it properly.
- Hold your phone to the chip and confirm.
Password protection — the softer option
Also in the Other tab. Sets a password that must be supplied before the tag can be rewritten. Unlike locking, this is reversible — if you have the password.
Lose the password and you have effectively locked the tag. Write it down somewhere real before you set it.
A tag is not a secret
Anyone who taps it can read everything on it. There is no login, no permission prompt, no way to tell who is reading. A password protects a tag from being rewritten — it does not stop anyone from reading it.
Never write to a tag: passwords, card or bank numbers, government ID numbers, house alarm codes, or anything you'd mind a stranger seeing if the piece were lost. Think of a tag as something printed on the outside of an envelope.
I Troubleshooting
If it isn't working, it's on this list.
Twelve real failure modes, and what actually fixes each one.
J Made by Noble Father Creations
Still need help? Find Shae.
Tell him what you're passionate about and he'll program your piece to anything you want — right there, in about thirty seconds.
Tags & stickers
NFC tags, stickers and resin pieces with the chip sealed inside. Unlocked, ready to program, yours to change forever.
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Made by Shae. Programmed by you.