How to autostart Waze when getting in your car

I love Waze. For those who don't know what Waze is, it's a community based traffic and navigation app for Android and iPhone users. I use it every single day when I am in my car, the problem is (or was) that every single time when I got into the car I had to unlock my phone, start Waze and then put the phone in car mount. I know it's not hard, but if you can make something to go easier why not.

So here is what you need to start Waze automatically when you get in your car:

- a smartphone with NFC standards.
- NFC tag
- NFC Task Launcher from Google Play

But what is NFC? NFC, or Near Field Communication, is a set of standards for smartphones and similar devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into close proximity. It can be used for contactless payment, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections, Social networking and smartphone automatization.

More and more phones support the NFC standard, so there is a chance that your phone also supports it, you just didn't know about it. According to gsmarena.com there are 154 Android phones that have NFC support. If you have an iPhone, then you can just hit the close button, as iPhones do not have NFC support for now. Maybe with the 5S NFC support will come to the iPhone too, but for now only Android and Blackberry phones have it.

Now that we have a smartphone with NFC support, we will need some NFC tags. You can pick up some from eBay, 10 pcs for $9.58. There are some that you can put on your key ring  there are ones that you can use as stickers, what ever model you want. I got one that I can just stick where ever I want.

NFC sticker tag

Next up you will need to install NFC Task Launcher from the Google Play. It's a free app and it will you to write to your NFC tag.

Start the app and select Car from the Location Profiles:

 You can then set the desired settings that you want to have when getting in your car. For ex. I want to turn on the Bluetooth, start Waze, disable Wi-Fi and turn on the GPS and Mobile Data:

 

After you set the desired events, you have to place your phone on the NFC tag, so the settings can be transferred to your tag. And that's it!

Now you just stick the NFC tag where ever you want in your car, and when you get in, you place the phone over the tag and presto, Waze starts. I put mine on my phone holder, so when I put my phone into it Waze will start.