USB Barcode Scanner

I am a librarian in a busy school library. Last year, my expensive 10 year old scanner started failing. I asked the school to replace it, but then covid came and we shut down. At the end of June, the students were asked to return all their text and library books. I realized I'd be facing a pile of returns, and I did not want to key in 1000 barcodes by hand, so I went on Amazon and searched for the cheapest barcode scanner I could find. This was it. Fast forward 8 months later, my school is open this year and this scanner is still going strong!! It is a little slower than my old one and I have to press the button to scan each book, but it is well worth the money!

This is a great scanner!! I’m a school librarian and I didn’t have much of a budget this past school year. I ordered this and it has been terrific! Works consistently and accurately- perfect for processing books. Excellent value.

Teachers scanning classroom libraries-this will make the overwhelming task a little less overwhelming. 1170 books so far. Well worth the money.

Let's get this out of the way first. You simply plug this device into a USB port and it will be recognized as a Human Interface Device (HID), like a keyboard. A barcode scanner simply reads and decodes a barcode and sends it to your computer as if you typed the information on a keyboard. You can tell by holding it that this device is an inexpensive barcode scanner. The plastic case is light weight, with no bump protection, so it is unlikely to hold up well in a typical store environment. What is surprising is it has a laser scanning engine. A few years ago you'd have to pay at least 10 times the price, or more, to get that feature. I'm guessing that some patents expired and now a company in China is producing laser scanning engines in bulk, which has really brought the price down. Out of the box it is programmed to read all common barcodes, and it includes a programming manual so you can modify the settings if necessary. One concern with an inexpensive scanner like this is the durability of the laser engine, which uses a vibrating mirror to sweep the laser beam across the barcode. At this point I don't know how long that mechanism will last. But, given the price point, this scanner probably wouldn't stand up to the abuse a more expensive barcode scanner is designed to take in a retail or warehouse environment. So, unlike the recommendations in the description, I feel this scanner is only suited for light duty, such as an office setting. In my case, that's exactly what it will be used for. For something more durable I recommend looking at CCD imager based scanners as the only moving part is the trigger.

Works great. I need to manage a lot of bar coded serial numbers on equipment at work and my eyes are not getting any better with age. This reader works well and reduces the chances of errors with the serial number inputs. Also working for this large company the laptop I am issued has restrictions by my IT department. Initially I was worried it would not install without IT assistance. After initial plug in the scanner installed and worked. Great not having to get IT permissions to add this.

This bar-code scanner worked right out of the box; plugged it in and started scanning. I mainly bought this for scanning in grocery store Monopoly game tickets. This let me get thru hundreds of tickets in no time!

I was given a project that needed bar codes entered into a spread sheet.... 1100 of them. So i went looking for an inexpensive scanner. This one ticked all of the boxes. It was plug and play on my Windows 7 laptop and Windows 10 desktop. It made short work of the scanning. It scans the label and advances to the next cell, just like I wanted. I would recommend this to anyone looking to do some bar code scanning. It came with a decent manual with configuration bar codes to configure for specific applications, I didn't need that. It worked for me right out of the box.

We bought two of these, and have been scanning bar codes into a spreadsheet for later import into an ecommerce system. A lot of the bar code scans were incorrect. About a third of the time, one of the digits in the UPC code would be omitted. Not always the same digit. We tried this on two different computers, running two different operating systems, plugged directly into a USB port on the computer with no hub. This bar code scanner has one job: to scan bar codes. Unfortunately, only about two out of three scans give you all of the digits to make a valid UPC code for the product you’re scanning. This happened on both of the scanners we ordered. Unfortunately, it took a while for us to figure out what was happening. This product is not suitable for its intended purpose. Another reviewer said that she gave it to her children to use as a toy. I believe it would be perfect for that. It’s lightweight, made of plastic, and is too big to be a choking hazard. If you’re running a business, keep looking!