Supenta seeks funding for NFC gaming smartphone case

Flitchio
NEW LIVES: The Flitchio uses energy harvesting technology to power up from a smartphone

Mobile gaming provider Supenta is raising funds on Kickstarter for an NFC-enabled smartphone case with a built-in game controller that fits on to a smartphone device and uses energy harvesting technology to power its components.

The device, called Flitchio and initially available for Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge handsets, acts as an enhanced NFC tag but, as the company explains, “the big difference with a standard NFC tag is that, instead of a one-shot message, we have an actual two-way communication between phone and tag”.

“Flitchio uses energy harvesting technology and power efficient components, so it doesn’t need its own power source and neither does it need to be physically connected,” Anousheh Tavakoli, COO and co-founder, explained to NFC World. “So, it snaps to a phone like any other normal phone case.

“However, the NFC-enabled phones can still be used for other applications such as payment while still using Flitchio as their case, as we implemented a switch that puts it on invisible mode allowing the phone to be used for other NFC applications.

“We are using an NFC-enabler chip to harvest energy from the idle power of the smartphone in order to activate the circuit inside Flitchio.

“Apart from gaming, Flitchio can also be used to control drones, take selfies and browse music. We are providing a software development kit to developers to take advantage of the new functionalities Flitchio offers, to enhance their games and apps and add new dimensions.”

The Flitchio Manager app automatically detects when a user starts playing a game on their smartphone that is compatible with Flitchio. The company claims it works with “dozens of popular games out of the box, all tested and approved by the team”.

“These include arcade, racing, action, RPG games, and we are constantly adding to the list. Flitchio also supports a myriad of console emulators to choose from; you can go back to the old days of Sega Genesis, N64 and Playstation or even to the handhelds with GameBoy, PSP and Nintendo DS as well as plenty of others.

“If you have a Samsung Galaxy S6 or Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, then you are the first in line to use Flitchio. We will add more handsets as soon as possible.”

Next: Visit the NFCW Expo to find new suppliers and solutions

One comment on this article

Comments are closed.