
I tried it on a dozen or so consumer products that I am familiar with and some other items like books. Worked OK, but required you to get close to a product, and hold the camera still while it scans. It worked well if I could easily orient the phone view with the package barcode. In use at the shelf that may be difficult. Or in a situation where I need to pick up the product to scan it. It did not work for upside-down or difficult to orient situations. Also the amount of light available seemed to alter its accuracy. You don't have to take a picture, it scans when it determines it is properly oriented. In the site video they pre-oriented products to work easily.
Bottom line, its a great idea, works with some effort, but don't expect it to work practically in its current form for scanning purchases as you put them in a cart. A typical shopper would not accept the difficulty. It has to work very quickly and reliably. Would work if you are scanning one-off, expensive purchases that may have lower prices in another shop. More technical details on their blog including SDK information.
2 comments:
Franz: the Google Android phone has (apparently) a better camera. In any case the barcode scanning works well.
Agorasys has a product (I'm the co-developer) that uses barcode scanning to scan barcodes on food items to see if they have been recalled. http://www.agorasys.com/products.html.
Best Wishes,
Scott Charles
PlumbBob Market Research
Thanks much, I will check out these resources.
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