Everyone has that drawer: a bursting collection of appliance manuals, most of them for devices you may not even own anymore. One writer spent 20 minutes digging through his just to check a single dishwasher setting, and decided there had to be a better way. His solution? Stick NFC tags on each appliance so tapping your phone opens the exact manual you need.
NFC tag on an appliance (Credits: How-To Geek)
The idea is simple, but it solves a real frustration. Digitizing manuals alone is not enough: a folder full of PDFs is just a tidier version of the same messy drawer, and you still have to hunt for the right file. An NFC tag removes the hunting entirely.
How to Put NFC Tags on Appliances for Instant Manuals
First, gather digital copies of your manuals. Most manufacturers offer PDFs on their websites; for smaller manuals that are not available online, you can scan the paper copy yourself. Save them all in one folder on your phone, such as a Manuals folder in the Files app.
Next, set up one automation per appliance. On an iPhone, open the Shortcuts app, create a new automation with an NFC tag as the trigger, and scan a tag, naming it after the appliance, for example “Bread Maker.” Then add the Open File action, point it at that appliance’s manual, and choose Preview as the app to open it. Stick the tag on the appliance itself, and repeat for each device.
Now, when you need a manual, you just hold your phone near the appliance. The automation fires and opens the right PDF, no searching required. In the writer’s test, scanning the bread maker’s tag opened its manual ready to browse for a recipe.
One Catch: The 30-Second Delay
There is one quirk worth knowing. In testing, the shortcut took almost 30 seconds before the PDF actually opened, long enough that it first seemed like it had not worked at all. That delay is a minor annoyance, but it still beats a 20-minute drawer hunt, and the system works exactly as intended once the file pops open.
If your home is full of appliances with manuals you can never find, a pack of cheap NFC tags and an afternoon of setup could retire the manual drawer for good.
Also Read: How to Use the TRIMRANGE Function in Excel to Clean Up Dynamic Arrays
Source: How-To Geek — read the full story there.
