The N2 Elite is an NFC writer specifically tailored for reading, writing, and storing Amiibo data. You can either use a phone with NFC writing capabilities, or buy a bundle with writer included, and use that to put data onto the coin-like doodad you use in place of the Amiibo. It can store 200 Amiibo worth of data, and you cycle through them with a button. I assume a person doesn't want to click through all their stored Amiibo one-by-one, so probably best to only store a few on there you need~

NB: You can't use this writer to write regular NFC tags.

If your phone does write NFC you'd be better off just using that with an app and writing to the really cheap NFC stickers/tags/cards you can buy online.

The official N2E app doesn't work so well, 'cause it relies on connecting to the companies servers to get info about Amiibo, and those no longer exist. But you can also use the Android app TagMo to write to N2Es now. Works better than running the official Linux desktop software too.

Support for the writer has been in the kernel for a while. Plug it in and lsmod and you should see a cp210x in the list. If you lsusb it is identified as Silicon Labs CP210x UART Bridge.

The official software is runnable using mono. I also have to run it as the root user, but you can probably fix this if you want¹⁾. So I use sudo mono N2EliteManager.exe and things run fine!

I've had issues with it not being recognised if it's not attached when I boot.

• www.n2-elite.com - Homepage.
• Official 'N^2 Elite' Support Forum.
• N2 Elite - Technical info. on Yobi Wiki.