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Is NFC for Verizon in the rear door whereas Sprint is in the battery?

Johnny Cakes

Johnny Cakes

Android Enthusiast
PROBLEM SOLVED: Check out this thread.

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I have Sprint S3 model.

I am attempting to do some mods to have the Verizon Qi charging rear cover door work with Sprint. Only problem is that the Qi charging coil and magnet on the Verizon Qi charging door covers the battery. Since Sprint has the NFC antenna in the battery, the NFC ceases to work.

The Verizon door seems to have the NFC antenna built into the rear cover itself, and then two contacts to connect it to the phone. Can anyone with Verizon confirm that that is correct?

In this photo, I have circled the Qi circuit in green and what I believe is the NFC circuit in Red. Can anyone with Verizon confirm that the Verizon branded phone has contacts that would match up with the contacts circled in red?

Thanks!
photo1Small_zps2cab60a4.jpg
 
From what I understand, the Verizon NFC is in the battery.
I did find this video about what you are attempting and perhaps you saw it also:)
 
Here are pictures of the Verizon phone. The cover is just a piece of plastic. Nothing is on/in it.

The battery has "Near Field Communication" printed on it. From what I have read it holds the antenna for it.

20130215_223304_zpsf5804517.jpg


20130215_223322_zpsf27ee610.jpg


Hope this helps.
 
The Sprint phone does not have the two contact points shown in Kline's photo next to the SIM card (and yes I know Sprint is CDMA and doesn't have a SIM card)

@Kline, thanks for the post -- that's exactly the info I was looking for. Question: when you remove the battery, does your Verizon phone have four contacts or two? I'm 99% sure your answer will be four, but would like to confirm.

@Mikestony: Yes, I saw that video but I think he is going about it ass-backwards. Rather harvest the NFC circuitry from the Verizon back and transplanting it into the Sprint phone (which he said took him a day the first time and two hours the second time), my thought is to use the Verizon back INCLUDING the NFC circuitry with the Sprint phone.

From Kline's photo, it appears that the Verizon phone has ADDITIONAL NFC antenna contact points next to the SIM card. This permits Verizon to have the Qi circuitry covering the battery (thus disabling it) but then use the NFC antenna which is part of he Qi case back and connect to the additional contacts.

So rather than harvest the Qi stuff like they did in the video, I'm thinking of running a short jumper from the NFC antenna in the Verizon Qi back cover (circled in red in my original post) to the original NFC contacts in the Sprint battery compartment.

Unless I'm missing something (and I hope someone will alert me if there is a flaw in my logic), this mod will take about two seconds and make the Verizon Qi cover work with the Sprint phone, while keeping NFC functionality.
 
klinc said:
Definitely 4 contacts on the battery. Almost posted a pic of that too... lol
Click to expand...

Actually asking about contacts on the phone in the battery compartment, not the battery itself.

My theory is that Verizon has built in TWO different places for the NFC antenna to connect to the phone: (1) Battery compartment, for normal operation; and (2) next to SIM card for when consumer has purchased Qi rear cover.

If this theory is correct, then the Verizon phone should have four contacts in the battery compartment: two for voltage from the battery (pos/neg) and two for the NFC antenna.
 
Thanks for the confirmation.

I wired it up today to prove the concept and it works fine. I am going to get some conductive cooper tape to really do it right. But the bottom line is that Verizon cover will work on a Sprint phone, and you can have NFC and inductive wireless charging with a simple one-minute modification to the battery and absolutely no modification to the phone (i.e. no warranty issues).

I can post a You Tube step-by-step video if anyone is interested.
 
I am thinking about doing this i would like a step by step video im positive i no how to do it but just to make sure
 
I received many PM's on this one so I went ahead and created a step-by-step tutorial on how to make modifications so the Verizon inductive charging back can work with the Sprint phone. The directions are located here.

Thanks to everyone who helped me think through this mod, especially Klic.
 
Sidebar:

So if my husband switches to a non-OEM extended battery and back does he no longer have the NFC option?
 
Even some "regular" non-OEM batteries don't have the NFC antenna built in. On eBay, some of the batteries that purport to be OEM often are counterfeit and don't have the NFC antenna. Check out this thread about the perils of eBay batteries claiming to be OEM.

Like iPredator said, some non-OEM have NFC, some don't. Its sorta a crap shoot.
 
Yep, I bought a "genuine" Samsung battery that picture indicated NFC. When I got it no NFC of course. When I contacted the seller he didn't volunteer to replace the battery, just to send it back for a refund. So I figured what he was selling wasn't legitimate Samsung battery
 
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