Using NFC for Bluetooth pairing/connection: what's wrong?

[Korben-Dallas]

I use NFC in my Xperia XZ to make payments through Android Pay, and it works fine.

Meanwhile, according to the user manual that comes with wireless Sony MDR100ABN headphones, I should also be able to pair/connect my phone to the headphones by using NFC, i.e. by touching the respective areas of the devices. However, there's absolutely no reaction from my XZ when I tap it on the NFC area of the hadphones. There's no chime, nothing.

I also tried tapping my phone on NFC-enabled car BT receiver. Also, no reaction from XZ whatsoever. 

Meanwhile, Nexus 6 works as expected in these scenarios: once I tap it, it chimes and asks me if I want to pair the phone with the headphones.

So, what could be wrong here? Why does my Xperia work fine with NFC payments, but refuses to use NFC to pair with BT devices?

[Uliwooly]

@Korben-Dallas

I had a similar issue, but it wasn't an issue after all, I forgot to unpair the bluetooth device before pairing it with my XZ

[Maikzi]

Do you have a case if do take it off and try to touch the nfc area with different parts of your phone

[Korben-Dallas]

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@uliwooly wrote:

@Korben-Dallas

I had a similar issue, but it wasn't an issue after all, I forgot to unpair the bluetooth device before pairing it with my XZ

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Firstly, no, this is not the issue in my case. I tried unpairing the headphones from the phone. Makes no difference. The phone continues to ignore the headphones.

Secondly, it is supposed to work even when the devices are paired. Touching already paired devices simply makes the headphones to drop the existing connection and reconnect to the new device (that touched it). Also, touching the device that is alrteady connected makes it disconnect from the headphones.

[Korben-Dallas]

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@Maikzi wrote:
Do you have a case if do take it off and try to touch the nfc area with different parts of your phone

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Tried this too. No, removing the case does not help.

[Korben-Dallas · Accepted solution]

Solved! It was my mistake. I thought that XZ's NFC sensor was located on the back of the phone, but it turns out that it is actually on the front (upper left corner). (The phone told me about it when I used NFC for the very first time, but I forgot).

Curiously enough, payments through NFC work fine when I tap the back of the phone at the reader. And it works through the phone's case. But for these headphones, I had to tap the upper-left corner of the front glass - an it got successfully detected.