There already are a few barcode related applications in the app store, but they all have one thing in common – they don’t really work. Red Laser, which has just hit the iTunes App Store, is the ultimate iPhone barcode scanner, which works just like one of those red-laser scanners at the checkout (hence the name.)
Red Laser is made by Occipital, the minds behind ClearCam, the application which is responsible for greatly enhancing your iPhone’s camera.
What Red Laser Does
Scan an item, and instantly have access to a bunch of online prices and information. Scan movies at the store and beam them to your TiVo. Scan a book and check for online reviews. Scan a food item and add it to your grocery list.
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Features
Beyond the fact that it’s the first accurate iPhone barcode scanner for UPC and EAN, probably the most noteworthy thing about RedLaser is that the developers are not keeping the technology locked in their own products. Instead, they’ve made an SDK available so others can integrate it in their apps too.
The RedLaser application allows you to use Google product search to find online prices, and allows you to keep a list of all your scanned items.
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RedLaser is certainly a great shopping assistant for every iPhone user.
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The problem is RedLaser simply doesn’t work. The software provides registration marks to help you line up the UPC barcode, but I found I had to place my iPhone 4 feet from the barcode to get it to line up. That meant placing the book on the floor and trying to hold the phone very, very steady. Due to the distance I was only able to take a good photo of the UPC code about 20% of the time. Unfortunately, RedLaser then failed to read the barcode 100% of the time. Another $2 down the drain.
>> The problem is RedLaser simply doesn’t work.
They didn’t say it worked. They clearly state that all the iPhone readers have one thing in common: they simply don’t work. They did not exclude Dead Razor, er, Red Laser in that list.
@bill curnow
we would recommend to contact developers with your problem.
We had a chance to test the product and it performed well
good luck
Bill – You do need to hold things out at a bit of a distance right now, but it’s more like 10-12 inches, not 4 feet. (See the video for example) Apologize it isn’t more intuitive right now, but it will get there with a couple of updates. When you get the hang of it, accuracies are closer to 90% for most users we’ve tested.
Congrats guys!
After a little bit of practice, this works great for me almost all the time – well done! How did this get approved but not ClearCam? It looks to use the same technology. App Store approval inconsistencies, you don’t say?
Looks awesome, when will it come to the Canadian store?
I can’t really see using this app as much more than as a gimmick, or as a “We have that too!” to T-Mobile G1 users…
Cool use of a camera and image processing, but $2 for an app that’s marginally more useful than just typing a UPC # into google? I dunno.
Seems like this would be an easy app to earn good advertising and affiliate sales revenue from.
At any rate, an improved camera app would be a welcome addition to the iPhone. I’d encourage you guys to push to get ClearCam accepted — that looks like it’s worth a few dollars.
It worked on 1 out of 10 barcodes I tried and crashed my phone. Wasted 1.99.
It’s about time the iPhone caught up with the G1 on this…it’s even a free app in the Market!
Funny… this is why I have an android phone. Barcode scanner works, and it wasn’t $2.
Only in the US! SUCK A D!CK!
Doesn’t work on 3.0
The focal length on the iPhone camera lens doesn’t lend itself to barcode scanning. Get an iClarifi case to reduce it a bit for clearer close-ups.
I must be confused. If it -works just like one of those red-laser scanners at the checkout- where is the laser? Maybe they meant -as reliably as the one at the checkout counter-?
You guys need to try out SnapTell (free on app store) which you just take a picture of the product. Like the cover of a dvd or cd, and it gives you the item, where you can buy it, and it gives you comparisons of nearby stores selling that same item.
We’ve enabled it in the US and UK because that’s where Google product search returns prices. Would it still be interesting to those of you outside the US, even if it only returns US/UK prices?
Will wait for it to be cracked and released. Cracked apps FTW. *que moral imbeciles*
Can I use this with any media cataloging software? I was hoping to use this on my DVDs and CDs.
I had never used RedLaser or SnapTell before today. Based on this review and video I purchased RedLaser and discovered –surprise!– that it doesn’t work. For a simple comparison, I used an unopened Blu-Ray Disc of The Longest Day and went to work. The focal length of the lens on the iPhone 3G required me to hold the disc at full arms length to properly line up the bar code (more like 24 inches, not 12 inches or 4 feet). At that distance reading the bar code is totally unreliable. Placing the disc on a mantle for stability made it easier to line up photos but plastic shrink-wrap easily defeats RedLaser’s weak character recognition. No matter how little glare was present every photo I take generates a different product code — but none of them are the correct product code.
Then I took a quick shot with SnapTell (free). It recognized the first photo I took at a distance of just a few inches and gave me a list of prices from different vendors in a few seconds. No tiny bar code to line up, instant success. And free.
After using both products I took a look back at the RedLaser video — notice how neither of the products scanned are shrink-wrapped? No accident there.
Don’t waste your money like I did. SnapTell works and is free and RedLaser costs $1.99 and does not work in the real world.
@MB Regarding the product code, we sometimes have a list of UPCs to search, and the code shows a “+” next to it. Did you try clicking through to Amazon? Sometimes products aren’t found through Google Product search but are available on Amazon.
Also, sometimes the camera view gets too zoomed in, and you need to restart the app to make it work properly (this is pretty rare).
I’m curious to see if either of these help with scanning that DVD. Typically we get pretty good accuracy, but you’re right that shrink wrap can mess with it sometimes.
We’ll be releasing an update that should boost accuracy and ease of use.
What we have here is an app that captures an image of the human readable aspect of a bar code and sends it off to an online database of UPC/EAN number looking for a match.
If found, it then submits a search for that item and displays corresponding results. It is by no means a bar code reader…it’s basically an OCR tool.
Martin Stockdale
Wireless Logistics, Inc.
worked great on a bottle of wine but now can’t get anything to read. way too hard to hold 12′ inches away when you are putting the camera into a zoom mode. I recommend waiting for updates.
Cool app. I’ve been waiting for this all along. Works great. Very accurate
Can you have your product demonstrator blow his nose before you turn the camera on? The sniffles are annoying.
From the reviews it appears to be pretty accurate too.
Every one I tried comes up with an incorrect code. I’m having to line up the barcode a little farther than 12 inches but not by much, it grabs a code, but not the one listed, then fails to find a product. Tried it with gum, yarn, bullets, and the tag on a northface hat.
Any further tips would be appreciated.
LOL this app looks dumb
what a nice app to have especially during these tough times. Whilst on the subject of apps grab yourself a free paid app I have promo codes to giveaway for several apps on http://www.WhichWebsite.com
I purchased this app, it doesn’t work at all.
It probably not the apps fault tbh, the Iphone camera is just not good enough for something like this to work.
The one you can get on the HTC magic works 100%, it has auto focus so can focus on the product properly.
I agree with others, holding the product the distance u have to hold it (about 20-30cm) away
When you finally manage to get an image that is in focus the code that it says its detected is almost always wrong.
I’ve testing it with dvds and loads of food products whilst I was wondering round Tesco today. It only found the product correctly on 3 of the 20 or so products i tried it on.
- A bond dvd
- a packet of halls soothers
- & a razor blade pack.
I don’t recommend buying until the developer makes it more reliable.
I sell books and I’m looking for an app for my iphone that will scan the bar-code of books and interface with Amazon.com and other book resellers similar to the many products such as media scout – that exist for pda’s.
Anyone know of anything – or willing to develop?
@Jeff:
An easy (I think) option to make the application useful outside of the US/UK is to allow an option to either use the internal Google product search mechanism or to send the barcode result to a (or maybe one of a number) user specified url.
For example: would (in my case) lookup de ISBN on Amazon and then add the book info to my Librarything.com collection.
I know you provide an SDK, but that is for iPhone Apps developers, not for power endusers.
The scanning worked perfectly, but no products were found on any of the products I scanned.
I would love if I could add to the database that it is checking up against, or even better, specify my own
they are working on a new version with bigger DB. YOu can get their beta on Cydia if you have jailbroken phone.
g1 user here. i cant believe you have to pay for a barcode scanner on an iphone, when the g1 has a barcode scanner integrated in the hardware, so any one can develop a barcode scanner app, i don’t even know how many there are in the market anymore.
and they all work, every single scanner always works, and if for some reason it doesnt u can download another one, and since the android is an open platform it can tell you the driving directions to the stores that have the product. try doing that with the iphone, if you can get the scanner to work.
i want to quickly scan books and add them to my amazon cart.
that i would pay for, if it’s automated.
I could not scan one single bar code correctly, the application does not work as expected… waste of 2 dll, I don’t know how some people are recommending this application, I tried several times to get it to read one barcode, different products in different light settings… no success…
AVOID, I want my 2 dll back
It seems not always works all the time from what I’ve read. Better use the original barcode scanner I think..
what a fucking waste of money!! stay away from this app…does not work at all. stop doing false marketing.
apps works flawlessly then again i have a 3gs so it picked up 95% of my barcodes within 2 seconds of holding it up to the camera..
love it.. i’ll donate more money later this month for future progress..
-happy consumer.
Updates must have worked, works every time for me. Very handy.
the piece of shit app doesnt work. at all. terrible
That’s weird because I bought it and it has worked on everything I’ve tried. I have a 3Gs with 3.1 OS. What iPhone do you guys have? The camera on the 3Gs is way better than the older ones, that must be the difference.
Works a charm for me, I’m just amazed at the how well it does work given how poor the iphone camera is. If they’ve made an app to improve the camera’s produced photos it’s annoying Apple aren’t letting it be published… that sort of craziness might be their ultimate downfall… Why not just insist on a certain price?? Saves them producing new hardware and still get the same profit.
Kudos to the developers, I’m a happy UK customer.
So when are they coming out with a version for Blackberry?
Well, I haven’t had a single scan take a picture no matter how close or how far…so I can’t tell if it returns the correct product.
I tried it on a book on my desk. No scan once the alignment edges turn green and it says “hold still for scan”
sigh…I agree, $2 down the tubes…ah well…
I’m a 3.1 OS user, just freshly upgraded from a jailbroken 3.0.1. This app seems to work just fine with most barcodes…cans of soda/monster don’t seem to work too well….anything printed on paper/cardboard/etc. has worked just fine for me.
FWIW, I honestly don’t miss the jailbreak that much. The exceptions might be Winterboard, SBSettings, and Backgrounder…jusy my opinion.g
Hey Stu –
In the meantime, thought I’d pass along something I found that may or may not improve clarity…Check out the Clarifi Case from Griffin. I can’t vouch for it, but it looks interesting…
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/clarifi
Works fine for me with Clarify case
It works fine on my iPhone 3GS
Works great on published barcodes. What about inventories. I need to creat my own labels for facility fixed assets. The code needs to be read by my sql database. In other words, I would like to customize it to read my barcodes.
Contact developers about that, see what they have to say. They use their own OCR technology
Not sure what is wrong with you folks that can’t make it work. Just look that mental midgets that work in most retail establishments. Come on people get with the program. I loaded this on my phone and the first 20 things I scanned, it worked beautifully. And to all the G1 fanboys bragging on their free barcode scanner app, that’s great. But your your phone and its applications are like a stinky turd when compared to the Apple products.
that is simply not true. the app works very well. it even was able to detect brake pad cleaner! you are either purposely slandering the app for some reason or don’t know how to operate a simple application.
yeah, comment from Bill is May 13th. When app came out it had issues. New version of the app improved significantly.
all the negative comments are for the 1st version of the app which had problems. All good now
Well I have a 3GS and it works faultlessly. It has auto focus so it usually snaps and identifies before you even line it up!!! – All these idiots on here slagging it off all must have old iphones and need to update to get with it or don’t get this app. Simple.
I do not know what all you are talking about…..this app works perfectly on my 3gs. it has scanned 100 percent of all the barcodes i threw at it.
a frigging mountain dew can (barcode is very shiny and it still worked)
a bic lighter (mini)
box of marlboro lights
the box to my spare xfx 8500gt video card
bottle of heinz white vinegar
bottle of windex
bottle of febreze
box of lightbulbs
box of arrow staples
a radio shack 9v battery package (which i might add the package was opened so i had to hold the barcode closed)
cant wait to take it to best buy
This app works almost flawlessly for me. Thanks to the devs!!
Nope, not true. I just downloaded it, and held a book in my hand and scanned just fine. Also, was able to hold a can of soup in my hand and scan that easily as well. Very great application, can’t wait to see it’s iterations in other software through use of the SDK.
Does anyone know how to get your website to show up on red laser?
RedLaser has thousands of reviews on the app store a solid 4 star rating. I bought it to try and it is fantastic on a 3GS iPhone. I discovered after trying to line up the barcode with t e camera and pressing the button that it doesn’t work that way. You merely move the camera around untill you hear a beep. The iPhone will figure out where the bar code is just like a super market scanner. A few seconds later you will have a list of prices and description of you item.
What is neat is if you are buying something on sale you can verify it truly is a sale.
This compares as well or better with other similar apps. I also use one from Amazon where I can take a picture of an item and Amazon will tell me what it is and if they carry it. Instant price match.
I save so much from Amazon by not paying sales taxes it is now a no brainer to I just check local price and add tax for comparison. Amazon ships for free second day or next day for only $4 if you are an Amazon Prime Customer. The difference can be substantial over a month of purchases. Amazon helps reduce the net cost of the iPhone to less than nothing each month this way.
Just change the way you have been doing things for years.
great feedback, wait for the post which will help you create your own scanning app for the sites which redlaser does not support out of the box.
There is also pic2shop (free), that works in a similar way: scan a barcode from the live image, then get a price comparison.
once i watched the video i scanned with ease. have the second generation iphone and scanned everything within seconds. it’s going to be great for business and personal shopping. unbelievable. can’t wait to show an old friend who was one of the first salesmen in the barcoding industry many years ago.
I thought the purpose of a bar code reader was to read the information contained in the bar code. Does this software has the do this?
An Java/iPhone/Flex developer hoping to integrated this software.
Hi Victor,
I’m just looking into using Red Laser on my 3G iPhone and am curious as to what types of everyday items you buy from Amazon.com that you realize a savings on? Could you share a partial list?
This could also be useful to help my website visitors who shop for Masonic rings, Masonic jewelry, etc. find the best prices available.
Thanks!
Simon
love this app … i do wish there was a way to make my own barcodes also in my warehouse it reads bar codes that it doesnt know what the part is (heating parts) but it does read correctly i wish i could put my own discription and price with that coded item.
you can do that read this post
http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/11/redlaser-22-lets-you-create-your-own-barcode-scanningapp.html
$1.99 purchase to test this application. I was thinking “sure i’ll see how this will work”. I have to say 99.9% accuracy, and I am very impressed. Being a developer of iPhone apps myself, there’s some serious pixel recognition going on. Definitely advise trying this with the 3GS, I don’t know if the focus range of 3G or lower would work.
Good job guys.
Twitter
@osten_company
I created a video of Red Laser iPhone app scanning my Barcode Elvis and Marilyn art http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXdAUzHqnR4
I’m looking for a barcode app but there are missed reviews here. Maybe I should wait a while until the technology matures?
no need to wait this is the one to get.
first version had problems the latest version works and app have been in top 10 for some while
Absolutely amazing. The barcode looks so blurry on screen but redlaser can still read it. I have been able to find 100+ movies from my DVD collection so far. Then I email them to myself and I am given an attachment of raw barcodes (and text in the body of the email with the barcodes plus the name of the DVD). I am having a little trouble importing these into collectorz.com’s Movie Collector but I think it is on their part and not redlaser’s. When using the import feature it places the barcode in the title column and leave the barcode column blank.
Amazing app … in some cases it works faster than the scanner at your grocery.
It seems to work prety well, but (isn’t there always a “But”) I also have Pic2Shop and ShopSavvy Barcode Scanners installed, which are both FREE.
The interesting thing is that when you have some sort of obscure product, one of them will identify it and another won’t, but the Really interesting thing is that while it can be a little tough to get a Lock with ShopSavvy, it seems to check Many More on-line sources and can find Much Lower Prices then the RedLaser, which sort of annoys me.
For instance, I have a DeLorme LT-20 Gps with 2008 Software. RedLaser identified it and proclaimed it to be a $79.00 Product, while ShopSavvy found it for $20 . That’s pretty damned Significant, so RedLaser would be a far more useful product if it could Shop Around a bit more than it does.
Just downloaded this application after going through a few comments on this and some other websites. I was disappointed. First I don’t know if this is for Canada or not yet. All the prices are in US $, euro and Pounds.You can’t change the currency even after paying 3 dollars. I tried to scan the following items Johnson and Johnson baby lotion, Ink Cartiridge pack, Tissue paper box, two technical books, two PS2 games and one movie. Though it could scan everything with a beep but could never give me the price of any and could recognise only two items out of all above. I won’t recommend it to any one till I get a good reply from somewhere.
Zia
As software programmer, bar code scanner is very interesting tech and a very promising direction. Because there will be a lot of bar code related applications tomorrow,i.e, bar code can used as e-ticket for airplane etc.
RedLaser is good but have some limitation, now seem like that ShopSavvy is the best one in this sort of apps.
thanks,
To lable this as “The First Accurate iPhone Barcode Scanner” is utterly ridiculous. I scanned a 5pck of wrigleys juicy fruit and it said the price was $19.99 so I gave it another try a bottle of hand sanitizr Germex said it was 39.99. Scanned a 1lb bag of hot wings made by Banquet said you could get them for $79.99 I hardly call that accurate.
Nice. I think its time I buy an IPhone for myself. Have been waiting long now.
I got the app and it scans the codes perfectly, but i live in south africa and is it possible to get prices and stuff to compare? or isnt that supported in my country?
Who cares if it works or not. Everyone is missing the bigger picture. This is an application designed explicity to undermine all the effort required to run a retail establishment. Going into a store to shop, then buying the product off whichever website has the cheapest price is extremely poor consumer behaviour. Find a locally owned store that specializes in whatever you’re after, talk to a knowledgable salesperson (thereby saving yourself countless hours of reading online reviews from know-nothing-joe down the street), and make the purchase. Keep your community strong. Shop local!
Shopping for the cheapest price sounds like very smart sophisticated buyer behavior to me.
I wish i had a 1D barcode scanner for my Nokia N82.Its true iPhone is the best with so many applications.N82 has 2D barcode reader which not so popular in my country.
Hi, our company working on new barcode reader logic for all phones including iPhone and Android which will also include UPS Code reading. If you need customized BarCode reader you can visit us at
http://www.kryptonsoft.com/outsourcing/iphone-application-development-india
Scanning with Red Laser while under the influence of wine is not recmmended – LOL
Red Laser is ok. ShopSavvy is a little bit better after scanning it will give you he upc.Unlike RedLaser that you must hunt for it.
has RED LASER updated its SDK and started using AVCaptureSession class to grab video frames from the camera.i need the reply for this question as soon as possible. thanks
Jeff, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Product_Code has a wealth of info on the code that could be used to make Red Laser as sensitive and accurate as possible.
Do any of you know of an App that can scan the 2D barcodes commonly found on trade shows badges – for an Iphone. Renting a reader at a trade show is insanely expensive. I would love to find a solution that could work – and export the leads and data to Excel or similar.
Hi,
I am wondering if you ever found an app for the 2D barcodes that are common at trade shows. I have the same issue.
Please share any info you have.
Thanks!
i need help with this it just doesnt work it says hold iphone steady i hold it steady for more than a minute but it still says hold iphone still to scan.what am i supposed to do?
Sorry for double post but i am using this app to try and see which of the collectable minifigs(from lego) i get without having to spend much money.
It was worthless on my original (first generation) iPhone, as the camera was fixed focus. If I got close enough for the bar code to fit the framing brackets it was so out of focus as to always fail. However, I recently upgraded to an iPhone 4 and it works perfectly.
Great, just one more way to destroy the availability of products in local stores. Small retailers who provide a huge selection for customers to try out will now be undermined by Amazon, et. al. The customer gets all the advantages of local stocking while Amazon and such don’t have those costs, but get the revenue.
The ongoing destruction of local interesting retail stores continues apace.
Tried to inventory my library with this, and then email myself the list. Brilliant idea, right? Especially when I have 200 books or so, not including anything from college. Well, it works for about 60% of the books, that go by a 978-total of 13#’s ISBN. I have a lot of them that are maybe 5-8 years old that go by an 0-total of 10#’s ISBN… and the App doesn’t pick ANY of those up. Well, it picks it up as a book, but never the right book, and in “The Search” it never shows the right book either. Kind of useless unless you’ve bought books within the last 3 years and use this App. >.<
I’ve used it and it works great.
I tried it but I am very disappointed. What I need is a barcode scanner, that is, a reader that can convert a barcode in an EAN number. I do not care if it search for internet for products! There is no way to get that number and use it elsewhere and there is no way to scan several barcodes and collect all numbers in a single file.
I wanted to get a good barcode scanner and after researching the different barcode scanners along with reading all the reviews, I’ve become even more confused, leary, and unsure. All the comments are either it’s a great product, or it’s garbage, a piece of junk. So since I have a iphone 4g 32gb, I figured that I would download on my phone 4 different scanning programs. The RedLaser, Scandit, ShopSavvy, and the Consumer Reports barcode scanner. This is what I found after testing all 4 scanners with barcodes of products I have around my house. All of them worked for me, but what was nice in having the different scanners is they provided me with different results. Scandit I feel has the best reader on the bar code. It picked up the barcode on a curved surface better than the others. Scandit and ShopSavvy provided me with more information and cheaper prices than RedLaser did. Consumer Reports is a little different because their more in the testing and ratings category however they do provide places to purchase and it’s not free, costs $9.99 for the year. All the others to include RedLaser is free on the apple iphone 4g. In my opinion, I like the Scandit best, my second choice is the ShopSavvy, and last comes RedLaser. I didn’t mention CR because it’s different. It’s basically for ratings.
is there an app like this on blackberry’s?
i DL red laser last week and it works great!!
The Red Laser worked perfectly the first couple of times I tried it. Couldn’t believe how good it was.
The second time, after a few weeks without use, it would not come up with a single successful “shot”. I would hear the ring of the apparently successful hit on the barcode, but then. . . NOTHING. I tried it at least 30 times on many different items, being very careful of lighting, verticle position of item, etc. Not one successful hit.
Haven’t noticed that anything has gone bad on my iPhone camera.
The coolest thing about RedLazer was I saved almost $5 On an item at target by showing the cashier my RL price comparison showing K Mart sold it cheaper. YAY!
However that was before the app quit on me, apparently. For that experience alone I wish it would act like it did at first. Hopefully other stores will be as accommodating as Target.
Free, open source product called barcode works equally well. Don’t know why anyone would pay for this product.