Near Field Communication (NFC) is currently being widely launched as a new wireless feature in cell phones, allowing NFC equipped phones to act as 13.56 MHz RFID readers or as tags as well as to utilize NFC for short range inter-phone communication. While many applications based on the most basic NFC cell phone technology have started to appear, this work addresses the possibility to not only retrieve static data such as ID numbers and web addresses from NFC tags but also sensor data. The work shows how commercially available NFC chips can be used for communicating sensor data to a smart phone, either directly through existing analogue input ports or by powering and communicating with an additional microcontroller. The work also shows how an NFC tag can operate as an actuator rather than a sensor, which is exemplified by the construction of a bi-stable switch capable of switching 250 Volt / 2 Ampere. Power transfer capability via the NFC interface is characterized with coils designed for different resonant frequencies as is inkjet printed coils on paper substrate where components are soldered with a low temperature solder compound.