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Show HN: Strich – Barcode scanning for web apps

78 points by alex_suzuki 3y ago

Hi, I'm Alex - the creator of STRICH (https://strich.io https://strich.io), a barcode scanning library for web apps. Barcode scanning in web apps is nothing new. In my previous work experience, I've had the opportunity to use both high-end commercial offerings (e.g. Scandit) and OSS libraries like QuaggaJS or ZXing-JS in a wide range of customer projects, mainly in logistics. I became dissatisfied with both. The established commercial offerings had five- to six-figure license fees and the developer experience was not always optimal. The web browser as a platform also seemed not to be the main priority for these players. The open source libraries are essentially unmaintained and not suitable for commercial use due to the lack of support. Also the recognition performance is not enough for some cases - for a detailed comparison see https://strich.io/comparison-with-oss.html https://strich.io/comparison-with-oss.html Having dabbled a bit in Computer Vision topics before, and armed with an understanding of the market situation, I set out to build an alternative to fill the gap between the two worlds. After almost two years of on-and-off development and 6 months of piloting with a key customer, STRICH launched at beginning of this year. STRICH is built exclusively for web browsers running on smartphones. I believe the vast majority of barcode scanning apps are in-house line of business apps that benefit from distribution outside of app stores and a single codebase with abundant developer resources. Barcode scanning in web apps is efficient and avoids platform risk and unnecessary costs associated with developing and publishing native apps.

danpalmer 3y ago
Nice launch. I've built software to run a warehouse before and we actually ran everything off a web app that was used both on the desktop and on mobile apps. We used barcodes for everything. I'll be honest, this isn't a problem we ever had. Barcode reader hardware always seemed cheap, good, and worked as a keyboard as far as web apps were concerned, so integration was trivial. In fact we had more success with those than with camera based options because the hardware and software was simpler. Where do you see the USP of this vs, say, phones with built-in barcode scanners, hand-held scanners, or finger mounted scanners? Separately, I see your pricing is based on number of scans. How do you validate this? Do you have a server component? Does that require an internet connection, and do you see that limiting the market at all because of either offline use or rules around depending on external services?
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Hey Dan. Thank you for your questions and valuable input! I agree with you that dedicated barcode reader hardware performs well and can be quite cheap. Did you not find the keyboard-style integration limiting regarding integration in your app, basically having to design your app to accept keystrokes followed by <enter> (I think this is commonly referred to as "keyboard wedge")? Regarding phones with built-in barcode scanners: I have some experience with Zebra TCx devices, which definitely work well, but they're quite expensive. Many companies, especially smaller ones, use employee devices and have programs that incentivize BYOD, like handing out annual cash payouts if you bring your own phone to work. Also some companies in logistics I've worked with rely on external partners (e.g. bike couriers) where you don't know what kind of device they'll use. Regarding the pricing: the SDK periodically transmits the number of scans that the device performed to a cloud-hosted API. The license check is also online (https://strich.io/faq.html#faqDataTypes https://strich.io/faq.html#faqDataTypes). For customers that require fully offline operation, there is a separate Enterprise license on offer.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    > Did you not find the keyboard-style integration limiting regarding integration in your app We didn't. We were able to use regular <input> fields and handle input in all the ways we already knew how to support well. It had the added benefit that manual testing during development could also be done with the keyboard which meant we didn't need to give engineers any specialised hardware most of the time. The flexibility also helped when we ran certain processes in the warehouse in different ways. We (engineering) learnt a while after we had put the system into action that sometimes people in the warehouse weren't using a phone with an attached or built-in scanner, but were sometimes using a Chromebook with a scanning gun. They'd use this for various bulk processing, or supervisors would use this because they worked mostly in the non-mobile tools or needed the productivity of a bigger screen and laptop over a phone. I guess the overall thing here though was that we just never thought about barcode scanning because it never came up as an issue[^1]. > I have some experience with Zebra TCx devices ... but they're quite expensive. Many companies...BYOD... Also some companies ... rely on external partners ... where you don't know what kind of device they'll use. This is a fair point. We didn't BYOD because these devices were in constant use in a busy warehouse and personal phones wouldn't have cut it in terms of reliability, but for more occasional use I get it. External partners BYOD'ing also makes sense. I think we had some Zebra TCx devices, or if not something very similar. They were pricey, but for extensive usage at our scale, probably not far off price competitive with your pricing. We also only had a few for a specialised use-case, mostly we used cheaper devices without the built-in scanners, and laptop/desktop hardware when mobility wasn't as important. > Regarding the pricing... Good FAQ answers on that one. That's my concerns addressed there! Enterprise pricing for offline support makes sense. Periodic reporting also sounds reasonable. [^1]: Except... that time someone left a barcode scanner with the trigger depressed on a desk once and because we made an API call on a scan, it brought down the site and database. Thankfully a quick fix and some protections and rate limiting solved it from ever causing an issue again, but a funny issue.
alexkoeh 3y ago
Congrats on the launch! We looked into barcode scanning with webassembly about 2 years ago, and the open source libraries weren't great. Really glad to see that webassembly can work well for this.
patch_collector 3y ago
Am I understanding correctly that the enterprise license allows offline scanning, but that it's not possible for the standard tiers? I'm using one of the other commercial offerings for a side project, and the one we went with was largely chosen based on its capacity to work in dead zones in our service area. This looks like an interesting alternative if it's also able to scan when the internet drops out.
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Hi there. All image processing/code decoding is done on-device. An internet connection is required for the initial license check and for usage tracking (see https://strich.io/faq.html#faqDataTypes https://strich.io/faq.html#faqDataTypes for details) in the Basic and Professional tiers. Correct, the enterprise license offers completely offline operation (= zero HTTP requests) as this is something often required for compliance reasons, and can be useful for PWA use cases and no-reception like basements.
zeroxfe 3y ago
Congratulations on the launch! Great landing page, and impressive demos.
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Thank you so much!
paleite 3y ago
Is it using the Barcode Detection API for browsers that support it natively? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Barcode_Detection_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Barcode_Det...
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Hi! No it does not use the Barcode Detection API, as that is not widely supported, and the last time I tried it (which is admittedly a while ago) performance did not seem great.
- noodlesUK 3y ago
  I would expect not, as that API does not currently support iOS (which is a real shame). What's annoying is that iOS bundles an excellent barcode scanning framework in Vision, so it wouldn't be tremendously difficult to add to safari.
- hahn-kev 3y ago
  Cool, I didn't even know that existed. It'll be cool when it's widely available, but even before then it's fun for some personal or PoC stuff
janaagaard 3y ago
Do you still need to grant the web page access to the camera on every page load on iOS, or have you found a workaround for this?
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Hi. From iOS 13 onwards camera access can be permanently granted on a per-site basis, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48847388/how-to-permanently-allow-usage-of-camera-on-trusted-websites-with-ios-safari/57368061#57368061 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48847388/how-to-permanen...
untech 3y ago
Interesting monetisation model. Wouldn’t a library which does the processing on-device be easily stealable? How do you plan to combat piracy?
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  There are some measures in place to combat piracy which I won't go into obviously, but probably not enough for someone determined enough to make an effort. On-device license check for unsigned code is basically impossible. On the other hand, that person would probably never have paid anyway. Also, as mentioned in the text, there are more interesting targets if you really want to get into it, which have the same problems.
macinjosh 3y ago
Great idea! I am not so sure about the business model though. With WASM and cross compiling it seems this _could_ be a fairly simple thing to develop these days. Though I could be completely missing the value add or the complexity of the problem. The need for tracking for licensing purposes seems anachronistic and probably easily hacked around. I would expect to see open source competitors offering a free library that does this at some point.
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Hey, that's what I initially thought as well! Turns out 1D/2D barcode scanning is a surprisingly involved topic, with tons of research papers. It's a topic with both depth (like advanced recognition techniques for certain types of codes) and breadth (wide variety of code types). As mentioned, there are several OSS competitors, mainly QuaggaJS and ZXing which is at the core of some wrappers like JsQRScanner or HTML5QRCode.
nashashmi 3y ago
Similar open source product is jsQRscanner on github https://github.com/jbialobr/JsQRScanner https://github.com/jbialobr/JsQRScanner
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Yes, and like https://blog.minhazav.dev/QR-and-barcode-scanner-using-html-and-javascript/ https://blog.minhazav.dev/QR-and-barcode-scanner-using-html-... it is based on ZXing.
- jsunderland323 3y ago
  I used https://github.com/cozmo/jsQR https://github.com/cozmo/jsQR in production for years. Never had any problems, before all smartphones had built in QR readers, most of our users would use it primarily to interact with our product. Works for iOS and Android. To my knowledge does not use ZXing and is Apache Licensed.
  - alex_suzuki 3y ago
    I've had a good experience using https://github.com/nimiq/qr-scanner https://github.com/nimiq/qr-scanner for QR codes too.
dzikimarian 3y ago
Subscription fee, with scan limit for something that works entirely on-device and with barcodes that likely will not change for years feels weird. Even weirder as I understand from other comments, that scan will fail without internet entirely due to licensing server being unreachable. Strong always-online single-player games vibe.
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Hey there, I understand where you're coming from. Monetizing these types of libraries based on performed transactions or active devices is pretty standard. The internet connection is only required for the license check which occurs at initialization time, typically once per application session (in case of an SPA). One thing to consider is that with web apps, an internet connection is kind of a requirement anyway - with completely offline-capable PWAs being the exception. Typical barcode scanning apps will want to report or look up data associated with a scanned code from an API backend. And yeah, I'm annoyed too when I'm stuck in a login queue when I want to play Diablo 4 in single-player mode.
  - csours 3y ago
    Industrial apps are often served from a private network with no access to the internet - I understand if you don't want to target that sector, but it is a real use case.
    - alex_suzuki 3y ago
      My hope is that these customers will opt for the Enterprise license which works completely offline. But hey, finding product-market fit is hard. :-) Thanks for your input!
      - criddell 3y ago
        How much does the enterprise license cost?
cdurth 3y ago
I have built 3-4 warehouse scanning applications using a range of bluetooth hardware and BYOD and zebra scanners. From my exp, this product misses the mark for 2 reasons. 1) internet access for license checking. Every warehouse I encountered had enough dead zones to warrant offline first. 2) Pricing seems a bit high. Maybe the target demographic is clients with hundreds of scanners, but this solution wouldn't make sense for small-mid size businesses. Zebra scanners will continue to work and scan barcodes 6 years from now. Transparency on "enterprise" costs would be nice. If i had a ballpark for price for maybe device breakpoints, id consider inquiring. But as it stands, i would advocate for hardware products and quickly move on.
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Fair enough! Regarding your points I have to disagree: 1) Since the library is meant to be used in a web app, how would the app be accessed without internet access? Also there is an Enterprise license which has completely offline operation, but this has been requested mainly for compliance and IT policy reasons. 2) Knowing what some of my competitors charge I disagree. I encourage you to send an email to the address listed on the page, and I will gladly send you the Enterprise factsheet. But yeah, maybe it's not for you and that's fine!
  - littlecranky67 3y ago
    > Since the library is meant to be used in a web app, how would the app be accessed without internet access? Progressive web app (PWA), or containered webapps like electron & co.
    - alex_suzuki 3y ago
      My thinking here is that containerized web apps built with frameworks like Capacitor or Cordova will typically resort to native facilities. Electron is not a target as the library is meant for smartphones.
  - Vuska 3y ago
    I've built a bespoke warehouse scanning application in the form of a PWA before. Our scanners are meant to always be connected to the internet, but there are dead zones in the warehouses and sometimes the connection just drops out of the blue. We added support for limited offline mode, essentially remembering its state, syncing when the connection comes back or warning the picker to reconnect if they leave it offline too long.
littlecranky67 3y ago
Nice project, but BarcodeDector API [0] will probably soon land in browser, and in the meantime there are wasm-based polyfills [1] that I've successfully tested myself for QR codes which work in-browser and offline. In-browser webcam demo from the polyfill author: [2] Making this a paid-per-scan and online-required library will have a hard time IMHO. [0]: https://caniuse.com/mdn-api_barcodedetector https://caniuse.com/mdn-api_barcodedetector [1]: https://github.com/undecaf/barcode-detector-polyfill#readme https://github.com/undecaf/barcode-detector-polyfill#readme [2]: https://codepen.io/undecaf/pen/LYzXXzg https://codepen.io/undecaf/pen/LYzXXzg
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Hey, the BarcodeDetector API has been around for some time, just crucially not on iOS. I didn't know about the polyfills though! If you're looking to only scan QR codes, https://github.com/nimiq/qr-scanner https://github.com/nimiq/qr-scanner is a library I can recommend and which I've used in a previous project. One thing the BarcodeDetector API does not give you is a UI for your barcode scanning. Basically it's your job to acquire an image and pass it to the API. With STRICH, you just provide an HTML element and the scanner will live in there, including controls for camera selection and flashlight (only on Android, unfortunately).
  - cpfohl 3y ago
    Wait, didn't iOS recently introduce torch control? I could have sworn that was in the last few months...
    - alex_suzuki 3y ago
      As of latest iOS 17 Beta it is not yet supported, unfortunately.
- cpfohl 3y ago
  BarcodeDetector (currently) has pretty poor performance. I'm sure that will eventually be fixed, though. I've had great success with qr-scanner and a web worker, though....
charukiewicz 3y ago
I've been working on a web application that has a bar code code scanning component and I will say that while the apparent performance of this library is impressive, I am not a fan of this pricing model, and that alone pushes me to use alternative libraries [1]. As an aside, the library I'm thinking of is based on zxing-js and seems to have perfectly acceptable performance scanning the bar codes in your OSS comparison [2] using the demo implementation [3] (it scans bar codes despite the name being "html5-qrcode"). For a library like this, the only really appealing pricing model is a flat fee that buys unlimited use of the version I buy in perpetuity (even if that fee is several thousand dollars). I'm not, however, going to pay monthly forever for code that (1) you wrote once and is now static, (2) that you aren't hosting, and (3) that I need to integrate into my application myself. That feels like paying my car manufacturer a monthly subscription for heated seats [4]. If I need support I will happily pay you a support fee. Moreover, I cannot take on the liability of my app's bar code scanner ceasing working because you decide to close your doors and then the license won't reactivate. [1]: https://github.com/mebjas/html5-qrcode https://github.com/mebjas/html5-qrcode [2]: https://strich.io/comparison-with-oss.html https://strich.io/comparison-with-oss.html [3]: https://blog.minhazav.dev/research/html5-qrcode https://blog.minhazav.dev/research/html5-qrcode [4]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscription...
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  Fair enough. The library you are using is based on ZXing and if it works well for you, then great. I did not manage to scan those damaged codes using ZXing but perhaps I did not fully explore all possible tweaks. It's a bit disingenuous to claim that I wrote the code once and it is now static (I wish!), but I see that you are not a fan of aubscription models and I understand that.
  - charukiewicz 3y ago
    > It's a bit disingenuous to claim that I wrote the code once and it is now static Unless the library code were in some way self-updating or had some server side component, I think it's disingenuous to call the library code embedded in my app anything other than static. I assume by "not static" you are referring to decision to continue improving it, which I think is great and affords you the ability to sell me a newer version.
semireg 3y ago
This app is adjacent to my indie electron app [1] for designing and printing labels, including barcodes. My app runs on Mac/windows and can be licensed offline. I love offering my users affordable one-time licenses that will work “forever.” I also offer a monthly subscription to satisfy the herd. 1) https://label.live/ https://label.live/
tamimio 3y ago
How does it compare to scandit? [1] I have used scandit before in a project in a drone to scan barcodes in warehouses, and had to do several hardware/software tweaks to scan some barcodes, might give a Strich a try if it’s better. [1] https://www.scandit.com https://www.scandit.com
airblade 3y ago
Thanks for building this. I agree there's a gap between OSS libraries and high-end products like Scandit. Scanning barcodes is harder than it looks. Or rather, scanning an intact, well-lit barcode square-on is easy – but it gets harder as conditions deteriorate. Are you worried about Scandit's patents? https://www.scandit.com/patents/ https://www.scandit.com/patents/
kotaKat 3y ago
Why do I have a weird feeling this would be something Zebra would try to acquire? ;)

78 points by alex_suzuki 3y ago

danpalmer 3y ago

Nice launch. I've built software to run a warehouse before and we actually ran everything off a web app that was used both on the desktop and on mobile apps. We used barcodes for everything. I'll be honest, this isn't a problem we ever had. Barcode reader hardware always seemed cheap, good, and worked as a keyboard as far as web apps were concerned, so integration was trivial. In fact we had more success with those than with camera based options because the hardware and software was simpler. Where do you see the USP of this vs, say, phones with built-in barcode scanners, hand-held scanners, or finger mounted scanners? Separately, I see your pricing is based on number of scans. How do you validate this? Do you have a server component? Does that require an internet connection, and do you see that limiting the market at all because of either offline use or rules around depending on external services?

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Hey Dan. Thank you for your questions and valuable input! I agree with you that dedicated barcode reader hardware performs well and can be quite cheap. Did you not find the keyboard-style integration limiting regarding integration in your app, basically having to design your app to accept keystrokes followed by <enter> (I think this is commonly referred to as "keyboard wedge")? Regarding phones with built-in barcode scanners: I have some experience with Zebra TCx devices, which definitely work well, but they're quite expensive. Many companies, especially smaller ones, use employee devices and have programs that incentivize BYOD, like handing out annual cash payouts if you bring your own phone to work. Also some companies in logistics I've worked with rely on external partners (e.g. bike couriers) where you don't know what kind of device they'll use. Regarding the pricing: the SDK periodically transmits the number of scans that the device performed to a cloud-hosted API. The license check is also online (https://strich.io/faq.html#faqDataTypes https://strich.io/faq.html#faqDataTypes). For customers that require fully offline operation, there is a separate Enterprise license on offer.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  > Did you not find the keyboard-style integration limiting regarding integration in your app We didn't. We were able to use regular <input> fields and handle input in all the ways we already knew how to support well. It had the added benefit that manual testing during development could also be done with the keyboard which meant we didn't need to give engineers any specialised hardware most of the time. The flexibility also helped when we ran certain processes in the warehouse in different ways. We (engineering) learnt a while after we had put the system into action that sometimes people in the warehouse weren't using a phone with an attached or built-in scanner, but were sometimes using a Chromebook with a scanning gun. They'd use this for various bulk processing, or supervisors would use this because they worked mostly in the non-mobile tools or needed the productivity of a bigger screen and laptop over a phone. I guess the overall thing here though was that we just never thought about barcode scanning because it never came up as an issue[^1]. > I have some experience with Zebra TCx devices ... but they're quite expensive. Many companies...BYOD... Also some companies ... rely on external partners ... where you don't know what kind of device they'll use. This is a fair point. We didn't BYOD because these devices were in constant use in a busy warehouse and personal phones wouldn't have cut it in terms of reliability, but for more occasional use I get it. External partners BYOD'ing also makes sense. I think we had some Zebra TCx devices, or if not something very similar. They were pricey, but for extensive usage at our scale, probably not far off price competitive with your pricing. We also only had a few for a specialised use-case, mostly we used cheaper devices without the built-in scanners, and laptop/desktop hardware when mobility wasn't as important. > Regarding the pricing... Good FAQ answers on that one. That's my concerns addressed there! Enterprise pricing for offline support makes sense. Periodic reporting also sounds reasonable. [^1]: Except... that time someone left a barcode scanner with the trigger depressed on a desk once and because we made an API call on a scan, it brought down the site and database. Thankfully a quick fix and some protections and rate limiting solved it from ever causing an issue again, but a funny issue.

alexkoeh 3y ago

Congrats on the launch! We looked into barcode scanning with webassembly about 2 years ago, and the open source libraries weren't great. Really glad to see that webassembly can work well for this.

patch_collector 3y ago

Am I understanding correctly that the enterprise license allows offline scanning, but that it's not possible for the standard tiers? I'm using one of the other commercial offerings for a side project, and the one we went with was largely chosen based on its capacity to work in dead zones in our service area. This looks like an interesting alternative if it's also able to scan when the internet drops out.

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Hi there. All image processing/code decoding is done on-device. An internet connection is required for the initial license check and for usage tracking (see https://strich.io/faq.html#faqDataTypes https://strich.io/faq.html#faqDataTypes for details) in the Basic and Professional tiers. Correct, the enterprise license offers completely offline operation (= zero HTTP requests) as this is something often required for compliance reasons, and can be useful for PWA use cases and no-reception like basements.

zeroxfe 3y ago

Congratulations on the launch! Great landing page, and impressive demos.

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Thank you so much!

paleite 3y ago

Is it using the Barcode Detection API for browsers that support it natively? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Barcode_Detection_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Barcode_Det...

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Hi! No it does not use the Barcode Detection API, as that is not widely supported, and the last time I tried it (which is admittedly a while ago) performance did not seem great.
noodlesUK 3y ago
I would expect not, as that API does not currently support iOS (which is a real shame). What's annoying is that iOS bundles an excellent barcode scanning framework in Vision, so it wouldn't be tremendously difficult to add to safari.
hahn-kev 3y ago
Cool, I didn't even know that existed. It'll be cool when it's widely available, but even before then it's fun for some personal or PoC stuff

janaagaard 3y ago

Do you still need to grant the web page access to the camera on every page load on iOS, or have you found a workaround for this?

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Hi. From iOS 13 onwards camera access can be permanently granted on a per-site basis, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48847388/how-to-permanently-allow-usage-of-camera-on-trusted-websites-with-ios-safari/57368061#57368061 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48847388/how-to-permanen...

untech 3y ago

Interesting monetisation model. Wouldn’t a library which does the processing on-device be easily stealable? How do you plan to combat piracy?

alex_suzuki 3y ago
There are some measures in place to combat piracy which I won't go into obviously, but probably not enough for someone determined enough to make an effort. On-device license check for unsigned code is basically impossible. On the other hand, that person would probably never have paid anyway. Also, as mentioned in the text, there are more interesting targets if you really want to get into it, which have the same problems.

macinjosh 3y ago

Great idea! I am not so sure about the business model though. With WASM and cross compiling it seems this _could_ be a fairly simple thing to develop these days. Though I could be completely missing the value add or the complexity of the problem. The need for tracking for licensing purposes seems anachronistic and probably easily hacked around. I would expect to see open source competitors offering a free library that does this at some point.

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Hey, that's what I initially thought as well! Turns out 1D/2D barcode scanning is a surprisingly involved topic, with tons of research papers. It's a topic with both depth (like advanced recognition techniques for certain types of codes) and breadth (wide variety of code types). As mentioned, there are several OSS competitors, mainly QuaggaJS and ZXing which is at the core of some wrappers like JsQRScanner or HTML5QRCode.

nashashmi 3y ago

Similar open source product is jsQRscanner on github https://github.com/jbialobr/JsQRScanner https://github.com/jbialobr/JsQRScanner

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Yes, and like https://blog.minhazav.dev/QR-and-barcode-scanner-using-html-and-javascript/ https://blog.minhazav.dev/QR-and-barcode-scanner-using-html-... it is based on ZXing.
jsunderland323 3y ago
I used https://github.com/cozmo/jsQR https://github.com/cozmo/jsQR in production for years. Never had any problems, before all smartphones had built in QR readers, most of our users would use it primarily to interact with our product. Works for iOS and Android. To my knowledge does not use ZXing and is Apache Licensed.
- alex_suzuki 3y ago
  I've had a good experience using https://github.com/nimiq/qr-scanner https://github.com/nimiq/qr-scanner for QR codes too.

dzikimarian 3y ago

Subscription fee, with scan limit for something that works entirely on-device and with barcodes that likely will not change for years feels weird. Even weirder as I understand from other comments, that scan will fail without internet entirely due to licensing server being unreachable. Strong always-online single-player games vibe.

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Hey there, I understand where you're coming from. Monetizing these types of libraries based on performed transactions or active devices is pretty standard. The internet connection is only required for the license check which occurs at initialization time, typically once per application session (in case of an SPA). One thing to consider is that with web apps, an internet connection is kind of a requirement anyway - with completely offline-capable PWAs being the exception. Typical barcode scanning apps will want to report or look up data associated with a scanned code from an API backend. And yeah, I'm annoyed too when I'm stuck in a login queue when I want to play Diablo 4 in single-player mode.
- csours 3y ago
  Industrial apps are often served from a private network with no access to the internet - I understand if you don't want to target that sector, but it is a real use case.
  - alex_suzuki 3y ago
    My hope is that these customers will opt for the Enterprise license which works completely offline. But hey, finding product-market fit is hard. :-) Thanks for your input!
    - criddell 3y ago
      How much does the enterprise license cost?

cdurth 3y ago

I have built 3-4 warehouse scanning applications using a range of bluetooth hardware and BYOD and zebra scanners. From my exp, this product misses the mark for 2 reasons. 1) internet access for license checking. Every warehouse I encountered had enough dead zones to warrant offline first. 2) Pricing seems a bit high. Maybe the target demographic is clients with hundreds of scanners, but this solution wouldn't make sense for small-mid size businesses. Zebra scanners will continue to work and scan barcodes 6 years from now. Transparency on "enterprise" costs would be nice. If i had a ballpark for price for maybe device breakpoints, id consider inquiring. But as it stands, i would advocate for hardware products and quickly move on.

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Fair enough! Regarding your points I have to disagree: 1) Since the library is meant to be used in a web app, how would the app be accessed without internet access? Also there is an Enterprise license which has completely offline operation, but this has been requested mainly for compliance and IT policy reasons. 2) Knowing what some of my competitors charge I disagree. I encourage you to send an email to the address listed on the page, and I will gladly send you the Enterprise factsheet. But yeah, maybe it's not for you and that's fine!
- littlecranky67 3y ago
  > Since the library is meant to be used in a web app, how would the app be accessed without internet access? Progressive web app (PWA), or containered webapps like electron & co.
  - alex_suzuki 3y ago
    My thinking here is that containerized web apps built with frameworks like Capacitor or Cordova will typically resort to native facilities. Electron is not a target as the library is meant for smartphones.
- Vuska 3y ago
  I've built a bespoke warehouse scanning application in the form of a PWA before. Our scanners are meant to always be connected to the internet, but there are dead zones in the warehouses and sometimes the connection just drops out of the blue. We added support for limited offline mode, essentially remembering its state, syncing when the connection comes back or warning the picker to reconnect if they leave it offline too long.

littlecranky67 3y ago

Nice project, but BarcodeDector API [0] will probably soon land in browser, and in the meantime there are wasm-based polyfills [1] that I've successfully tested myself for QR codes which work in-browser and offline. In-browser webcam demo from the polyfill author: [2] Making this a paid-per-scan and online-required library will have a hard time IMHO. [0]: https://caniuse.com/mdn-api_barcodedetector https://caniuse.com/mdn-api_barcodedetector [1]: https://github.com/undecaf/barcode-detector-polyfill#readme https://github.com/undecaf/barcode-detector-polyfill#readme [2]: https://codepen.io/undecaf/pen/LYzXXzg https://codepen.io/undecaf/pen/LYzXXzg

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Hey, the BarcodeDetector API has been around for some time, just crucially not on iOS. I didn't know about the polyfills though! If you're looking to only scan QR codes, https://github.com/nimiq/qr-scanner https://github.com/nimiq/qr-scanner is a library I can recommend and which I've used in a previous project. One thing the BarcodeDetector API does not give you is a UI for your barcode scanning. Basically it's your job to acquire an image and pass it to the API. With STRICH, you just provide an HTML element and the scanner will live in there, including controls for camera selection and flashlight (only on Android, unfortunately).
- cpfohl 3y ago
  Wait, didn't iOS recently introduce torch control? I could have sworn that was in the last few months...
  - alex_suzuki 3y ago
    As of latest iOS 17 Beta it is not yet supported, unfortunately.
cpfohl 3y ago
BarcodeDetector (currently) has pretty poor performance. I'm sure that will eventually be fixed, though. I've had great success with qr-scanner and a web worker, though....

charukiewicz 3y ago

I've been working on a web application that has a bar code code scanning component and I will say that while the apparent performance of this library is impressive, I am not a fan of this pricing model, and that alone pushes me to use alternative libraries [1]. As an aside, the library I'm thinking of is based on zxing-js and seems to have perfectly acceptable performance scanning the bar codes in your OSS comparison [2] using the demo implementation [3] (it scans bar codes despite the name being "html5-qrcode"). For a library like this, the only really appealing pricing model is a flat fee that buys unlimited use of the version I buy in perpetuity (even if that fee is several thousand dollars). I'm not, however, going to pay monthly forever for code that (1) you wrote once and is now static, (2) that you aren't hosting, and (3) that I need to integrate into my application myself. That feels like paying my car manufacturer a monthly subscription for heated seats [4]. If I need support I will happily pay you a support fee. Moreover, I cannot take on the liability of my app's bar code scanner ceasing working because you decide to close your doors and then the license won't reactivate. [1]: https://github.com/mebjas/html5-qrcode https://github.com/mebjas/html5-qrcode [2]: https://strich.io/comparison-with-oss.html https://strich.io/comparison-with-oss.html [3]: https://blog.minhazav.dev/research/html5-qrcode https://blog.minhazav.dev/research/html5-qrcode [4]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscription...

alex_suzuki 3y ago
Fair enough. The library you are using is based on ZXing and if it works well for you, then great. I did not manage to scan those damaged codes using ZXing but perhaps I did not fully explore all possible tweaks. It's a bit disingenuous to claim that I wrote the code once and it is now static (I wish!), but I see that you are not a fan of aubscription models and I understand that.
- charukiewicz 3y ago
  > It's a bit disingenuous to claim that I wrote the code once and it is now static Unless the library code were in some way self-updating or had some server side component, I think it's disingenuous to call the library code embedded in my app anything other than static. I assume by "not static" you are referring to decision to continue improving it, which I think is great and affords you the ability to sell me a newer version.

semireg 3y ago

This app is adjacent to my indie electron app [1] for designing and printing labels, including barcodes. My app runs on Mac/windows and can be licensed offline. I love offering my users affordable one-time licenses that will work “forever.” I also offer a monthly subscription to satisfy the herd. 1) https://label.live/ https://label.live/

tamimio 3y ago

How does it compare to scandit? [1] I have used scandit before in a project in a drone to scan barcodes in warehouses, and had to do several hardware/software tweaks to scan some barcodes, might give a Strich a try if it’s better. [1] https://www.scandit.com https://www.scandit.com

airblade 3y ago

Thanks for building this. I agree there's a gap between OSS libraries and high-end products like Scandit. Scanning barcodes is harder than it looks. Or rather, scanning an intact, well-lit barcode square-on is easy – but it gets harder as conditions deteriorate. Are you worried about Scandit's patents? https://www.scandit.com/patents/ https://www.scandit.com/patents/

kotaKat 3y ago

Why do I have a weird feeling this would be something Zebra would try to acquire? ;)