This is a tiny little sticker designed to be stuck to a fingernail prior to covering it with nail art.
It then flashes with pulses of power received from the NFC (Near Field Communication) coil in the back of your phone. I'm not sure if they are intended to be used with an app that makes the NFC coil more active, but I wouldn't really want a random app like that on my phone anyway, for security reasons.
Note that subsequent closer examination showed that it has a second 12 turn coil on the back to effectively double the number of turns to 24.
These stickers can also be used to locate the position of the coil in your phone by shifting them about and noting the intensity. They may also be effective on the coils of NFC readers, but do not work with the classic RFID 250kHz readers or QI charger coils.
The circuitry is interesting in the way it uses a simple voltage doubler based on high speed diodes and capacitors.
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Let's take a look at some interesting little stickers that are theoretically designed for ladies to put in their fingernails. They may have other uses actually but they're designed for ladies to put their fingernails and use colored lacquer over them. And what happens is that when they put their finger in near the back of a nfc coil, a near field, communication column like in the back of this phone, it makes them flash they power themselves from the inductive field. And it's quite interesting because by moving them about, you can actually find the sweet spot of where the coil is in your phone.

So it's quite useful for that. The circuitry is very simple: let's take a look at these stickers watch your eyes. The light is coming back, so here's what they look like in normal light and maybe the camera's not doing much favors here but they're, not bad they're visually, even under the studio lighting as such, there's still visible little points of light. Splashing on and off note that this dot is the center of the coil.

If i move it into the middle, nothing happens, nothing happens, full stop because it's just shut down. Oh no, it started again, let's take a little break and then it does it again. Um now it's it's just intermittently doing things but uh. It seems to be more sensitive around the perimeter here.

I think it must shut down to us at a lower number of pulses later on interesting. I've, never really visualized nfc field on my phone before. Oh there. It goes again interesting, stuff right, tell you what i'm gon na bring in a scaled up image.

So we can see these in greater detail, and here is this scaled up image which will make things much clearer. Let me go over this and show you what there is. There is an outer antenna, and this is super thin - keep in mind that this is this little sticker here, i'll put it in the middle of the led, so you can see it i'll, even turn it around to the right direction, and you can actually see the Scale of this picture versus that it's worth mentioning, i tried these with qi chargers. I tried them with uh the standard, um key fob entry systems and i tried it with the inductive coils for the wireless leds.

None of them operated it. The only thing they operate on is the nfc coil. So we have this super fine coil. I measured its resistance at 22 ohms.

You can do that because there's these two pads here, it's so thin that uh, i think, they've put these pads here. So they can actually test in the factory to make sure the coil is intact. It's not got a little speck of cocker missing, copper missing. How many turns are there? 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

10 11 12 turns and they effectively feed a voltage multiplier. Based on these two diodes and these two capacitors, there are two plated uh through holes to tracks the other side. This one is going over to there, so the led is basically bridged across this area here and this one is effectively going all the way up to the outside of the coil over there. What that means is that the coil well i'll, show you the schematic.
That's the best thing: here's the schematic. I shall slide this tiny little sticker out the way the schematic has the pickup coil with its quite high resistance, 22 ohms, and it's got two schottky diodes. When this end of the coil was positive. It charges this capacitor up.

Positive and when it goes negative, it charges this capacitor up negative. The led is across those, so any uh energy imparted from the coil into these capacitors. It goes through the led and makes it blink. That is fundamentally it there's not much to it.

It's a very, very simple circuit, the stickers themselves, i'm trying to think what other applications would be. It's certainly it's quite useful. The idea of having something that can detect an nfc, coil somewhere or just for novelty. I suppose you could stick it on your nfc card.

Uh just to see it flash, although it might in its own way it may actually shunt some of the energy but they're level, they're interesting little things. It's odd. You know stuff like this is made for the beauty industry for the fingernails, which is a huge industry, but it does potentially have other applications and it's also quite inspiring the circuitry for maybe using it in other applications. Quite cute and interesting little things.


16 thoughts on “Nfc powered flashing fingernail sticker with schematic”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars jcx says:

    I wonder if they could make an RFID card that small. Deviant Ollam and his wife have embedded RFID chips in their skin – cool but not sure I'd wanna do that, but it would be quite fun to show off some painted nails and "magically" open doors. I think something like that wouldn't go amiss in my handbag, as well as the new 'lipstick' lock openers that Deviant was showing recently too. 🙂

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Polt3rgeist says:

    Interesting. I recently injected myself with an NFC implant and it works similarly. It has a harvesting system which powers up a led and my hand glows blue when near an NFC field.

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars PicoNano says:

    That must be the finest tracks I've seen to date!
    Looks like the PCB etching solution almost gobbled up this one!

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Dave P says:

    Part of me wonders if this is a ploy to get people to have their NFC on all the time. I wonder what could be done with that.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars KernArc says:

    I seem to recall reading that the "passive" NFC device that takes part in the transaction (e.g. a card talking to a POS terminal), due to obvious power constraints, isn't actually actively transmitting but rather varying its load on the transmitting device's EM field and that in turn gets detected and decoded by the actively powered device. In other words, the card doesn't harvest the POS terminal's EM field until it is somehow able to store enough energy to power its own transmitter (hard to achieve enough capacitance in such form factor) but rather shunts the "active" device's energy in a specific code that is then interpreted as information being "transmitted" from the card to the terminal. What I'm trying to say is, I would think that such a sticker would wreak havoc in the attempted transmission if you had it installed on a device you're actually trying to make a transaction with. Worth checking! 🙂

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐮𝐬 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐮𝐬 says:

    I attached one of them on my credit card. When I pay with NFC cashier sometimes says that it is the first time anybody has a light in the credit card. The credit card is working fine with it and there is not any interference.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Spider Pickle says:

    I think it's time for Clive to properly paint his nails on stream. 💅
    Especially because nail polish on fingernails shouldn't just be for ladies.

    I vote for rainbow colors in pride month.

    Also, Clive's "Technical use for nail polish" video is a good watch.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars NiteLynr says:

    I'm thinking that these could potentially be incorporated into dungeon scenery/traps for role-playing games to give a bit more ambience and interactivity, reckon R&D hat will be going on soon 🧙‍♂️
    On a side note: nice to see a Blackview brick in the wild. Loving my BV 9700: runs for a week on a single charge and the weight of it means I always know straight away if I'm not carrying it! (Also can be used as a self-defence tool if called upon – I have literally cracked floor tiles dropping it!)

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars ehsnils says:

    Can you program them with some data – like your phone number?
    Get the question "What's your number" and you can give them the finger.

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars M Murase says:

    The only thing I can come up with for these is to stick them in random spots with a sign saying "hold your phone near this sign to activate bomb".

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars lez briddon says:

    i have a 'real' nfc not much larger than that embedded in a ring, i'm currently embedding readers in my van door handles.

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars EpicATrain says:

    Is it possible to use NFC fingernails that are linked to your debit card so that all you have to do is just tap a POS thingie and pay for your purchase via your fingernail? I know that's a horrid idea because of security but it makes me wonder.

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars China North Airguns says:

    Those are 5G receivers. They are designed to give the user MK Ultra type mind control messages. Very dangerous. The House Of Lords is behind it all.

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mr. Unacceptable Shadowbanned By Google says:

    These would be good for telling where NFC terminals and card readers are in your environment as you go around town. If they operated on those frequencies. Like you say a visual of when your card is close to a reader. Maybe one you don't know about.

  15. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Stephen Eyles says:

    These are in a similar vein to the little stickers about which you did a previous video – designed to stick on your phone and flash when it's communicating!

  16. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Gann Dolph says:

    could you poke a hole in the PCB inside of the coil (without damaging a trace,), and run a wire thru that to prove AC current flow in the wire? although not sure if there’s enough turns ..

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