Usually, when someone comes to your home and asks to connect to your Wi-Fi, you either go to find the password if you can’t remember it, or you manually connect it to the network. Also, when you meet a new person and want to get their contact information, you usually exchange numbers, call each other, and then create a new contact with information about the person.
This likely won’t change anytime soon, but with the cool new technology built into our phones, you can definitely stand out by making the process a lot easier. A friend of mine recently told me about a free website that allows you to create your own QR Codes for a variety of different purposes. If you don’t know what a QR code is, check out the article on the Wiki.
So how is it actually useful to create your own QR code? Well, for those using the latest version of iOS (11), QR codes are much more useful because the default camera app can now read them automatically. This means there is no need to download a separate app just to scan the QR code.
Plus, iOS 11 will not only scan a QR code, but it will also allow you to add that data to your phone. For example, if you create a QR code with your WiFi credentials, anyone who scans that code will automatically be able to connect to your WiFi without having to manually enter a password, etc. Unfortunately, this is not easy for Android users to use. It depends on your phone, Android version, etc.
Create a custom QR code
The first thing you need to do is create your own QR code. The best way to do this is to use a free site called QRCode Monkey It’s completely free and very easy to use. I literally created my first QR code in about 2 minutes.
At the top, you will see the different types of QR codes you can create: URL, Text, Email, Phone, SMS, VCARD, MECARD, Location, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WiFi, or Event. In this article, I will give you examples of Wi-Fi and VCARD that I tested on my smartphone.
Click VCARD and keep version 2.1. Version 3 will probably work with iOS 11, but I haven’t tested it. Now enter all the information you want to save into your QR code. As you can see, quite a lot of information can be added.
So, instead of just sharing your number with someone and spelling everything else, you can quickly share all this information in a few seconds, and I’ll show you how below. After you enter the content, they have the option to change colors, add a logo image, customize the shape, and so on, but I didn’t bother with any of that. Just click on the Generate QR Code button on the right.
You should see the design change and there will now be a whole bunch of smaller dots on it. Now you can also click the Download PNG button or download the QR code in SVG, PDF or EPS file formats.
That’s literally everything! You have created your own QR code that you can print or copy to your phone. In my case, I just emailed myself a PNG file and opened it on my iPhone. I then saved the image to my camera roll and then went into my Notes app and pasted the QR code into a new note along with a title to determine what information it stores.
Now you can insert this QR anywhere for people to scan. You can post it on your website, print it on your business card, etc. It is also very easy to create other QR codes. My favorite is WiFi. Click on it and enter your wireless SSID, password and select the type of encryption for your network.
Create a QR code and upload an image. Now that you know how to quickly and easily create QR codes for various purposes, let’s talk about how you can use them.
Scan QR codes using a smartphone
Now for the fun part: scanning your QR codes. As I mentioned earlier, this whole exercise will be much more fun if your iPhone or iPad is running iOS 11. For Android users, you will have to download a QR code scanning app, which is not so convenient and useful.
On your iPhone, open the regular camera app. Make sure you are in a photo or square. Now just point your camera at the QR code and you will see the magic! The QR code can be on your phone display, computer screen, or printed, it doesn’t matter.
As you can see, I just put the QR code I created on the website in front of the camera, and a notification appeared at the top with the name “Contact QR Codeâ€. Just tap on that and bam, a new contacts screen will open where all the information you entered earlier is already filled in! Just hit “Save” and you’re done. The nice thing is that you don’t even have to press a button to take a photo, it just sees the QR code and automatically interprets it.
The same happens when scanning a WiFi QR code! Just click on it and it will join you on this network! You don’t need to open Wi-Fi settings or anything else. This is really cool. You should definitely try this if your phone has iOS 11. Obviously, someone who doesn’t have an iPhone running iOS 11 won’t be very impressed, but for those who have an iPhone it will feel like magic. Hopefully, future versions of Android will support the same level of QR code integration as iOS. Enjoy!
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