QR Code or NFC Tag on Your Handmade Work? Let the Material Decide
If you're thinking about putting a tag in what you make, the first question isn't "QR or NFC?" — it's "what is the piece made of?" The two fail in different ways, and once you know how, the choice mostly makes itself.
A QR code is a printed pattern the phone's camera reads. It needs room — roughly an inch across for something read at arm's length — and it has to stay on the surface to work, so years of scrubbing will wear it down before anything else on the piece. An NFC tag is a small chip sealed under the finish: nothing to scratch off, and it fits on pieces too small for a readable code. Its weak spot is metal, which blocks a standard tag; a shielded "anti-metal" tag fixes that for a little more money.
Two things surprised me testing my own pieces: the phone has to be unlocked or the tap does nothing, and read range is short — the phone needs to sit flat against the tag. That's why I like a QR code as a backup wherever there's room.
The full post goes piece by piece — signs, trays, cutting boards, ornaments, card holders — with the tag I use on each: QR or NFC for a Gift Tag? It Depends on What You're Tagging on the CraftedLink blog.
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