I have tested 9 different barcode readers for mobile phones. And I will publish a review of each barcode reader here. The fourth barcode reader I've tested is shotcode. Shotcode is rather interesting, and it differs a bit from the other readers in the test. Let's take a closer look at Shotcode. Shotcode is a barcode scanner for mobile phones that uses a completely different barcode type than any of the other scanners I've tested. They call their barcodes "shotcodes" and they are specially customized for scanning with mobile phones. This is an advantage seeing one scans a code extremely quickly.

The software itself is very lightweight compared to others I've tested. It both starts and runs quicker than most readers, and it's available on a large amount of handsets. This software has been around for a while also, and is the first barcode scanner I ever installed on my phone.

One very big advantage with Shotcode is that they allow anybody to create barcodes and direct them to their site. Each person can only create a certain amount of barcodes. Companies wanting to use this system can pay for it, and don't get the same limitations as personal users. This makes the software quite interesting, both for end-users and companies. Shotcode has also been around for a while, and has been used in some quite large projects, and has proven to work.

The downside is that Shotcode can only be used for redirecting users to websites via the phones web browser. You cannot store an URL directly in a barcode, and you cannot store information like your business card, phone number, etc.

Conclusion

Shotcode is a piece of very interesting technology, and it could very easily be that all of us are using it sometime in the future. Although it has its limitations, this is by far the most lightweight scanner I've tested so far, and it's very easy to use. I've always kept shotcode on my cell phone, in addition to my favorite barcode scanner.

Score: 7/10

If you want to try out shotcode, just point your phones WAP reader to http://mob.shotcode.com

Photo by Dan Schiumarini / Unsplash