I’ve been beating my head around why every place I’ve gone to so far with Paypass (Home Depot, McDonalds, Best Buy, 7-Eleven, you name it) hasn’t worked with my new Galaxy Nexus phone that’s supposed to work with NFC and Google Wallet. I searched all the forums and just couldn’t figure out what was happening. The guys at 7-Eleven said it worked with every other phone they tried it with.
Then I remembered – I had an extended battery pack that I bought off Amazon that was on the phone to extend the battery life. It made the back of the phone a lot bigger, I’m guessing preventing the NFC signal from getting through. I actually found a unique way of testing it: The Nexus Q actually supports NFC. If you hold your phone up to the Nexus Q your phone will open up to the Nexus Q app in the Play Store. So I ran an experiment.
Just as with 7-Eleven and all the other Paypass stores, the Nexus Q didn’t register when I’d hold up my phone to the Nexus Q. When I removed the extended battery pack, sure enough, the phone would buzz, beep, and then open up to the Nexus Q app. That was indeed my problem!
So if you’re experiencing this same issue, try putting back in the original battery. I’m betting this fixes a few issues, and it’s odd that I’m not seeing this warning anywhere in the Galaxy Nexus forums or docs. I’m surely not the only one with a battery pack! And how does it work with thicker cases?
If this helped you, let me know in the comments!
UPDATE: I’m being told on Google+ that the NFC is actually in the battery on the Galaxy Nexus, so that would explain why this happens. I wonder if there are expanded battery packs that have NFC in them so this doesn’t happen. If you know any let me know in the comments!
