NFC vs infrared: can a phone replace a remote control?
No, not with NFC. Controlling a television directly needs infrared, which almost no phone still includes, or a network connection to a device that accepts commands. NFC has a different role in this scenario: a tag triggers a routine, and the routine sends the command by whatever means actually reaches the device.
Where the question comes from
Both are short range, both involve pointing a phone at something, and both were once the answer to "how do two devices talk without a cable". The comparison feels natural and it is misleading, because the two have almost nothing in common.
What infrared does that NFC cannot
Infrared sends light. It reaches several metres, needs a clear line of sight, and is entirely one way in the remote control case: the remote speaks and the television listens, with no confirmation that anything arrived.
That one way, unacknowledged nature is why a remote sometimes does nothing and you press again. It is also why infrared cannot power anything, cannot be read from a card, and cannot work through a pocket.
NFC is the opposite on every axis. Two centimetres, no line of sight needed, bidirectional, and able to power the thing it talks to. The only property they share is being short range, and even there they mean different things by it.
How a tap really controls a television
The chain that works has three links, and only the first is NFC.
The tag holds a small instruction. The phone reads it and runs an automation. The automation sends a command over the network to whatever actually controls the television, whether that is the set itself, a streaming device, a hub or a bridge with an infrared emitter.
Understanding that chain matters because it tells you where failures come from. A tap that does nothing is usually the automation or the network, not the tag, and rewriting the tag will not help.
The one case where infrared is still the answer
Old equipment that has no network interface at all. A hub with an infrared emitter, driven over the network, is the standard bridge, and a tap can trigger it exactly as it triggers anything else.
Building it
Put the tag where the gesture is natural, which is rarely near the television. Beside the sofa, on the coffee table, by the door. The point of a tap is that it happens without thinking, and a tag you have to walk to is a tag that stops being used.
Keep what is on the tag as simple as possible, ideally a single trigger, and put the logic in the automation. Anything encoded on the tag requires physical access to change, whereas an automation can be edited from an armchair.
And accept a limit: this only works while the automation platform works. A tap that depends on a cloud service will fail when that service does, which is worth knowing before tagging the whole house.
Frequently asked questions
Does my phone have an infrared blaster?
Almost certainly not. A handful of models included one and the feature has largely disappeared from the market, which is why phone based universal remotes now work over the network instead.
Can an NFC tag send a command directly to a device?
No. A tag holds data, it does not transmit anything to a third device. Everything beyond the phone reading the tag is done by software on the phone.
Why does my tag routine stop working after an update?
Because the fragile part is the automation, not the tag. Platform updates change how routines are triggered and what permissions they need, and the tag itself is unchanged and still perfectly readable.
Is there any modern use of infrared worth knowing?
Bridging equipment that predates network control. A hub that receives a network command and emits the matching infrared code is how old air conditioners and televisions get integrated, and it is a genuinely useful pattern.