Great scanner for the price, no software needed.

So thankful that I decided to purchase this when I did for inventory purposes. It does feel like it's going to fall apart but it hasn't so far and has actually been a huge time saver.

I have several collections I want to catalog and I bought this device to be able to read and record UPC codes. In that sense it works fine, once you figure out what to do. First, you need to keep the booklet of codes tha comes with the device. These codes tell the device what to do. The device is paired by Bluetooth to a computer. Figuring out WHAT to do is more obtuse than figuring out HOW to do it. The instructions are minimal and you may have to go to YouTube or elsewhere online to learn what to do. Pairing this to my desktop computer was easy. But I want to catalog my books and it’s easy to carry my iPad to my books, so I tried to pair this device to my iPad. So far that hasn’t been successful. I have tried to scan many books at one time and leave those catalog numbers stored in the device for later uploading to my desktop, but after a short while and before I get to my desktop for uploading, the device turns itself off and loses the data. Somewhere along the line, with time, patience, and research I will get this all to work the way I think it should. The potential is there.Amended 6-9-21I emailed the company’s support center regarding my issues with connecting to my iPad and in less than 24 hours they responded: this device does NOT have Bluetooth connectivity. If you plan to use it with an iPad/iPhone you have to purchase a lightening to USB adapter. I made that purchase and connected to my iPad using the adapter and the charging USB cable that came with the scanner. Lo and behold! It worked. So in order to use this with my iPad I will have to use it as a wired device, a minor inconvenience. I imagine that if you plan to use this with an android device without a USB port you will need to purchase an adapter. I was very pleased that the company responded so quickly to my email and that as a result I am able to use the scanner in a mobile environment.

Ordered this for Civil Air Patrol to use with local meeting attendance tracking. Wanted wireless because kids and adults entering the facility can be chaotic and I do not want a laptop or tablet going flying when a cord gets caught on someone.In the box: one scanner, one USB cable (charging and direct connection to PC without the wireless dongle), one USB wireless dongle (tiny), one instruction booklet/additional page with programing barcodes.Windows 10 PC identified the USB dongle out of the box as a "barcode scanner" and was up and running in 30 seconds (laptop has SSD). I spent more time playing with settings once it was functioning. Opened Notepad and zap... zap...Using the scanner - pull the trigger once to wake it up if needed, pull the trigger again to scan something. Pull the trigger again to scan again, and again and again. Factory fresh it would emulate a keyboard entering "abc123456 " if the barcode was "abc123456". It emulates a keyboard with someone typing the barcode in quickly and per my unit's configuration.Lighting to USB adapter on an iPad mini (AKA Apple's camera adapter) accepted the wireless dongle and scanning did the same as on Windows in the app I had open. Once the scanner is configured the way you want/need, plug it in and go on the systems you want to use it for.Depending on the settings, it will turn off after a few minutes or never, I changed mine to 2 minutes and that seems to match, no stopwatch used to verify. Like most current barcode units, you get to scan barcodes to adjust the settings - some units require "put in program mode" and "save changes/exit program mode" when you are done. This one does not need that begin/end behavior for most basic settings. For most people, you will not need to change much other than deciding if you want any ending keystroke ( vs vs nothing), the beep sounds/volume, and how long until it turns off. I do not intend to use this to collect a bunch of scans and then bulk upload them to a PC later. I will only scan one at a time on demand. Other more advance settings exist (prefixing or suffixing your scans with characters including something like if a Point of Sales (PoS) application takes that as a "jump to input field" command before the scanned value is sent, changing the baud rate for transmission, other weird things the common small business may never need) but it works to just scan and stream the output as a keyboard typing.Range wise, I went about 30 feet away in another room and scanned a few things. I came back to the PC to see they all were keyed into the program, one per line due to the key being included.I have not seen anything ship with the old USB-B 2.0 connector in years but this has a solid connection, ideal for when using tethered to a PC or recharging. Much more durable to a micro-USB or USB-C would be, and easy enough to find a replacement cord in your box of old cables vs a proprietary RJ-45 to USB cable that brand-X uses vs brand-Y with a different pin-out.Concerns - loosing the USB wireless adapter between meetings and moving between various computers in use - I wish there was a way to store the adapter attached to the scanner securely when not in use.

I am very carful when it comes to lower priced item because from my experience do not perform good, but since this product offered free returns and a one year warranty I decided to give it a try. I own a retail shipping store so we scan bar codes all day long for shipping labels on boxes that customers bring in, sometimes the customer label is not clear or covered with clear tape so we are not always working with the ideal barcode and the scanner job is to be able to read the barcode and not struggle with hard to read barcodes.For the price of what I paid for this scanner I am very impressed compared to a $200 scanner it performs to about 98% like the more expensive scanner by reading the challenging bar codes for a quarter of the price which is good to me.The next test is to see how long it will last, if I can get a full year of usage out of this scanner then I got my moneys worth, will see how the manufacture will handle any issue that come up in the future and will post an update.So far their tech support was great, I emailed them with a questions and they replied within a day and resolved the issue. I am happy with this scanner so far.