Forum Discussion
Barcode Scanners - ideas / suggestions needed!
Hi there,
I work for a medium sized digital e-commerce platform that holds stock for, picks, packs and ships goods to customers when they place orders on clients websites such as TikTok Shop / Etsy etc etc...
All our software (WMS/e-commerce) is completely bespoke and written in-house by our developers.
One issue that we have is that our warehouse pickers use a Chromebook and separate USB barcode scanner on their picking trolleys to perform their work however this leads to numerous broken Chromebooks (several every week) and I feel it isnt the most efficient solution. What we are wanting is an Chrome based solution for barcode scanning (1D & 2D) - it needs to be able to get to a webpage where our WMS is hosted and be more rugged than a Chromebook!!
I am aware there are Android based "gun grip" mobile computers but what I have seen are hugely expensive (circa £2200 each) and this would be too much for us to swap to.
Do any of you have a solution in place that you think might suit us? We want to stay with Android where possible as all our office staff use Chromebooks & Google G-Suite.
Any advice or suggestions greatly appreciated!!
Thank you!!
7 Replies
Wow! Thanks everyone for your help & advice!! I now have a Zebra TC27 on order to test!!
Hi itsJustPhil
Apologies for the delayed answer!
I think you've received some awesome replies from Moombas, Tim25 and Michel - thank you team for your help 🙏
I just wanted to share the link to our Android Enterprise Recommended (AER) program (this is a directory of devices that meet strict Google requirements for security, performance, and durability):
https://androidenterprisepartners.withgoogle.com/devicesPlease let us know if there's anything else we can help you with 🙂
You could try switching to Android handhelds with built-in scanners like the Zebra TC21 they’re rugged, Chrome compatible, and cheaper than high-end models. Or use a PWA setup so your WMS runs in Chrome and uses the device camera for scanning via the BarcodeDetector API. We’ve seen similar setups work smoothly for teams testing nostalgic mobile games and light warehouse tools reliable, simple, and budget-friendly.
Sorry to bump this thread but any suggestions would be very greatly received!!
Thank you in advance!! :-)Hey,
just one thing to add here, you should look for rugged devices but maybe no need of gun grip (even they are, out of any discussion, faster in handling) but scanning using the camera.
There are some really fast solutions outside which can be inbuild into your website (don't ask about details, I'm not a developer). I think our web developers used the chrome inbuild one for a long time.
Ofc this website then needs access granted to the camera.
Then no gun grip is needed and you could use for example Samsung Galaxy XCover7 pro enterprise edition or similar (~450€).
And we used in the past Zebra TCxx (wide spread range of cost) devices where you can add a gun grip (~230€) as well, not getting close to your price (i don't know how much more they may cost in UK than in EU, so i just converted the price from € to £).
Here we need to add for enterprise grade devices like Zebra that broken devices nearly always get repaired (even broken screen etc.,) if you have a repair contract (so you don't pay 2200£ for a new device then). I would recommend here to reach out to the manufacturer what'S included in "normal warranty" and extended ones. especially you seem to have a big amount of devices need for repair.
I think it most likely depends on what use case you have and what you really need. I would recommend to discuss internally what's "enough" and what's really needed.
To tack on to Moombas here, itsJustPhil you have loads of options available to you :)
You could also look at the combo of a smartphone (rugged or with a case) and a ring scanner such as Proglove, other ring scanners are available I'm just not very familiar with that market. There's even durable Android tablets such as the Galaxy Tab Active if your users prefer a larger screen.
In terms of scanning with a device's camera, you can check out ML Kit for a native solution or Scandit if you find ML kit doesn't meet your needs.
