On 1 September 2026, 42Kites became NearField. It is the same company and the same people. The product was rebuilt over the past year, your account and your content moved with it, and 42kites.com keeps working.
The three things people ask first
- Do my installed cards still work?
- Yes. Every card printed with a
42kites.com/smartlink/…address still resolves, and that domain is not being taken down. Nothing needs reprinting. The full explanation is here. - Where did my Experiences go?
- They came with you, with their content and their card links intact. Sign in and you will find them waiting. There are a few things worth checking.
- How do I get in?
- Set a password once, and you are in from any device. Signing in for the first time covers every route, including if the email never reached you.
What things are called now
What things are called now
| On 42Kites | On NearField | What actually changed |
|---|---|---|
| SmartLink Card | Marker | Same idea, same job. Your installed cards keep working, because the legacy addresses still resolve. |
| Experience | Experience | Unchanged, and still the word for the page a visitor lands on. |
| Content module | Content block | There are considerably more of them now, and they are grouped by what you are trying to do. |
| My Account (the control centre) | Dashboard | Your Experiences and Markers live on the dashboard. Billing and profile settings live under Account, separately. |
| Sponsored banner | Sponsor+ blocks | Still how you offset the cost of a deployment with a partner's support. |
| Inclusion Bar | Inclusion Bar | Same name, same place. Text size, contrast and read-aloud, on every published Experience. |
| Disconnected SmartLink | An unlinked Marker | A Marker you own that is not pointed at anything yet. It is a state, not a separate product. |
There is a longer list of everyday phrases (the wizard, the two edit modes, the plan names) in what things are called now.
What genuinely did not change
- Your cards. Same codes, same walls, same PINs on the back.
- The Inclusion Bar, in the same place at the bottom of every published page, on every plan including free.
- Read-aloud and translation, still switched on per Experience and still free.
- No app for visitors. They tap or scan and the page opens in the browser they already use.
- Re-pointing a card without reprinting it. This was the best thing about 42Kites and it is the foundation of NearField.
- Where we are. Still Tampa, Florida.
What changed most
- Reordering. Drag a block by its handle. No more typing an integer between two neighbours.
- The block library. Considerably more blocks than the old module grid, grouped by what you are trying to do and searchable.
- Numbers. 42Kites had no analytics at all. NearField counts taps, scans, views and answers, and attributes them to the individual card.
- Buying and designing. Marker faces are designed and ordered by you, in the browser, without a ticket.
- Payments. Money goes straight into your own Stripe account rather than through a pasted-in link.
Things that did not come with us
A few 42Kites features have no NearField equivalent, including the AR app and the three named service guarantees. We would rather you heard that here than found out on a Tuesday. The full list is in its own article, along with what to do instead.
What to do this week
- 1
Sign in and set a password
Once, from any device. Everything else follows from this.
- 2
Tap one card
Pick a card you know well, tap it with your own phone, and confirm it opens what you expect. One good test is worth an afternoon of reading.
- 3
Look at your Experiences
Check colours, images and anything embedded from another service. The checklist is here.
- 4
Look at the block picker
Open any Experience, press Add Block, and read the groups. Most of what people miss about the move is a block they did not know existed.
Is my price changing?
Plans are Starter, Growth and Enterprise, and there is a free tier. If you had a 42Kites plan, check what yours maps to on your Account page and get in touch if it does not look right.
Do I have to do anything by a deadline?
No. Nothing switches off, and 42kites.com is not going anywhere. Sign in when it suits you.
Will visitors notice?
Barely. Someone arriving from a legacy address may see a short banner explaining that 42Kites is now NearField. Your page renders exactly as it did.
Is my content stored somewhere new?
Yes, NearField runs on its own infrastructure. Payments still go through Stripe, and Experience content is not indexed by search engines. Anyone with the link can open it, which is the same as it was.