So, lastly we come to the final element of barcoding this article covers and that’s actually reading them!
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Reading a barcode requires a barcode reader and these come in all kinds of shapes, however they all tend to have the same types of engine now, whether a handheld retail scanner connected to a till or a rugged smartphone of some kind with built in scanner.
There are 4 main types of technology people use to scan barcodes using a handheld device.
All mobile devices have a camera and you can use this to scan barcodes and for adhoc scanning they can do the job. However there are a lot of issues you need to be aware of if you want to relky on this way of scanning barcodes.
Barcode reading is slow. People don’t realise just how much technology goes into a barcode scanner module to make scanning super quick.
Barcode scans can misread, especially using 1D barcopdes. Arguably this is a more serious problem as you could in effect read the wrong ID from a barcode.
There’s no SDK to integrate this into your apps and in order to use this approach you need to learn a whole 3rd party SDK like Xing for example.
You can tell you have one of these because they exhibit a fatter, blurry red line when in use. To be honest there’s nothing wrong with one of these and even the king of barcoding, Symbol, stopped making laser scanners in favour of this technology about 3 years ago and it’s now hard to fault.
There are no working parts to break, the technology is innovative and they’re also cheap so they are found in a lot of “hybrid-Rugged” devices which to me enables and introduces a whole new customer to barcode scanning.
They also don’t use the same amount of power that a laser emitter uses but you have to be scanning a lot to tell.
Despite being a great choice of technology the fat line is difficult to aim. On some boxes where there a lot of barcodes it can be difficult to pick one out and you can scan the wrong barcode.
CCD/LED technology doesn’t have the same range as a laser or 2D scanner. Simply put the light from the emitter won’t travel far with it dissolving into thin air! However if you scan in the normal way, like up to 30cm then these should be no problem.
Only 1D barcodes can be generally scanned with this type of barcode scanner.
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Once the king of scanning, laser scanners are still arguably the most aggressive scanner type you can use for 1D barcodes. They are now becoming slowly but surely obsolete as the innovation is focussed on 2D and LED scanning but they still have their place.
They’re fast, efficient, can scan over longer distances and also come in long range versions to. The thin laser line is easy to aim and we’re all familiar with this type of barcode scanner so they’re easy to use.
Well these only scan 1D barcodes too.
Laser scanners have moving parts in the form of a rotating mirror, so they aren’t inherently as rugged as LED or 2D scanners. I have to say though that in all my years of selling this type of kit I think I saw 1 laser scanner that broke!
The laser emitter can be dangerous if not used correctly and point into someone’s eyes.
So these are essentially little cameras but they’re super optimised to read barcodes. 2D scanners used to have a big trade off between the cost and whether you might be scanning 2D barcodes in the future. However these days the costs are getting very close to LED and laser versions.
2D scanners are also extremely efficient these days and the latest versions are comparable with all but the best laser or LED scanners in terms of speed and efficiency. 2D scanners have a few tricks up their sleeves however:
They are able to scan all but the most specialised barcodes, so you’ll never need another scanner if your solution expands.
2D scanners have green and red lights that can increase the contracts of barcodes and make them easier to read.
They are also usually highly configurable so you can set them up for outdoor, indoor or poor lighting conditions quite well.
No moving parts again mean that they’re rugged.
I have to say the arguments against 2D imagers are getting weak. The pricing difference isn’t that bad these days, they’re going to equal laser/LED technology for efficiency for most of us and they really are a decent scanner for either 1D or 2D scanning these days.
So there we go, this article should now give you enough knowledge to walk the walk a little when it comes to barcode scanning and you should be scanning like our Raptor E5 in the video below! If you need any help then just drop us an email or get onto twitter and we’d be only too happy to help you.
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