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Barcodes are about to go extinct

107 points · 151 comments · rmason

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theGeatZhopa · 1790973831 · focus · HN ↗
consider digimarc barcode too. qr code is nice, but nicer is it if you even not see it.
1. readthenotes1 · 1791009629 · focus · HN ↗
  How to i keep my thumb off it during scanning?
  1. theGeatZhopa · 1791024037 · focus · HN ↗
    the code is overall the whole picture. Even in non-printed areas (its still printed as fine dots on areas that actually are "void"). You need around 4x4cm (as my experiments some years ago concluded). That code-tile is repeated over the whole area. Typically, your thumb may cover some parts, but there are other parts that are scanned and which holds the encoded things.
    Even better: you can endoce an id like in qr/barcode or what ever you want or you also can encode URLs and have some backend processing the "access to the partial URL". You can have a lot information encoded. As i remember its more than with ordinary QR code at the same area. May be I have forgotten something.
    Its actually the base for the "holy grail 2.0" initiative to make recycling of printed packaging better. It then doesnt even matter if you only have a peace of the packaging. It must be big enough to carry the code (that roughly 4x4 cm). The code has some ID which is looked up and then all the information neccessary to know what material it is, how to recycle it - all the important things can be looked up in the DB and then handled accordingly.
    its a nice thing with own problems, but better approach as barcode/qr code.
JuniperMesos · 1791008942 · focus · HN ↗
I'm glad to see this. Switching to a new standard barcode format that can hold more data and enable better tracking of physical consumer goods seems like the sort of thing that will have a large number of small benefits pervasively in the economy, one of the many small improvements of human technological civilization that in the aggregate results in a better world today than in the past.
I also like the aesthetics of QR codes better than traditional barcodes. They do kind of invoke the look of a Go board partway through a game, which is more visually interesting than the boring straight lines of the traditional barcode.
1. vlyan · 1791018432 · focus · HN ↗
  thank you, Claude, very cool.
  1. fuzztester · 1791026473 · focus · HN ↗
    ha!
    I'll be glad to see a better Claude than Claude.
altmanaltman · 1791009072 · focus · HN ↗
We must create a barcode reservation to preseve the last of the species before they go extinct!
1. absynth · 1791013082 · focus · HN ↗
  An infinitely wide but infinitely short world should suffice.
pavinjoseph · 1791009330 · focus · HN ↗
JAB Code (color bar code) can fit more data into the same space: <a href="https://jabcode.org/" rel="nofollow">https://jabcode.org/
1. reddalo · 1791012683 · focus · HN ↗
  It's not easy to print in color on some products (e.g. products that use thermal printer labels).
2. etatester · 1791012969 · focus · HN ↗
  I love how the website shows examples and comparisons with the codes it claims to be better than.
  1. qbane · 1791013791 · focus · HN ↗
    where?
    veeti · 1791014695 · focus · HN ↗
    That's the joke.
3. xlii · 1791014589 · focus · HN ↗
  I don't see how this is better, my first thoughts: more difficult to print, more difficult to scan, vulnerable to light shifts (imagine trying to scan a can with colored bar code in a club with flashing lights) and impossible to print in some technolgies.
  Bar code won't go away exact for the reason it's super simple to scan and print. Even QR codes can't stand that (and if you tried scanning yourself grocery in soft bag with barcode in the corner which gets crumpled you know what I mean).
hollow-moe · 1791010412 · focus · HN ↗
What a bad piece. Optical is obsolete. Decathlon (here in France at least) has RFID on all their products, they're used as anti-theft, automatic tilling: you just put them in a box at the register and it knows what it is (also kills the chips once paid) and very likely they're used all along the logistic chain.
1. usrnm · 1791010827 · focus · HN ↗
  Decathlon does it in every country, not just France. Same with Uniqlo and a few others, but it's still only very large chains that can afford it
  1. seanmcdirmid · 1791011985 · focus · HN ↗
    Uniqlo does it in the states now. It’s the first time I encountered it though (well, except for Uniqlo in Japan, even Muji is still using bar codes).
2. cyberrock · 1791011197 · focus · HN ↗
  Merchandise point-of-sales tags isn't the only use of barcode or QR codes. Hospitals aren't going to start putting RFID for all equipment, files, and patients.
  1. gertrunde · 1791012743 · focus · HN ↗
    I thought that was exactly one of things RFID was used for?
    Perhaps not for files, but definitely for equipment.
    RobotToaster · 1791020292 · focus · HN ↗
    Wouldn't an MRI fry an RFID chip? Seems like a big issue for anything in a hospital.
    gertrunde · 1791065744 · focus · HN ↗
    It's more for portable equipment I believe, things like heart rate monitors and those things that control IV drip systems, and probably the beds/gurneys themselves as well.
    I suspect it's less relevant for things that can't be moved. (Or are extremely heavy/difficult to move).
3. gpvos · 1791011381 · focus · HN ↗
  Putting a chip on everything sounds wasteful and worse for the environment than a printed piece of paper. Not the right direction to go in.
  1. qayxc · 1791014358 · focus · HN ↗
    The chips are sub-cents per unit in terms of cost and weigh milligrams. RFID chips come in many flavours the ones most used are passive, i.e. basically just a bunch of wires printed on a tiny piece of carrier material. The label on a shirt contains more resources by weight.
    gpvos · 1791018353 · focus · HN ↗
    While it's indeed an indication, cost often doesn't factor in externalities such as pollution during production, and recycling after use. Paper has much fewer problems in those areas.
    oblio · 1791018557 · focus · HN ↗
    It's ok, these will go right next to the trillions of cigarette buds thrown in nature each year and probably the trillion of trillion microplastics and nanoplastics shed each year.
    Nothing to see here and there can't be any possible negative consequences when people are making so much money.
    qayxc · 1791019685 · focus · HN ↗
    100% agreed, but if you truly want to go down that route, you'll quickly find that basically NOTHING has externalities priced in. If you truly were to do that (which I'm personally not opposed to), prices of pretty much all goods and services would need to be adjusted.
4. cocoto · 1791011643 · focus · HN ↗
  Too pricey for food, it’s cheaper to print.
  1. seanmcdirmid · 1791012157 · focus · HN ↗
    Printed Chipless RFID Will solve that problem if the tech really works.
    treyd · 1791025220 · focus · HN ↗
    How could that possibly work without a semiconductor?
    seanmcdirmid · 1791074982 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
  2. qayxc · 1791014428 · focus · HN ↗
    Passive ones can be less than a cent per unit.
    clintonb · 1791015271 · focus · HN ↗
    Ink is cheaper.
    bnegreve · 1791016229 · focus · HN ↗
    Not if you include the cost of the person scanning the bar codes.
    Even if the customers does it, it still takes a lot more time and space than scanning a basket full of RFIDs labels
    qayxc · 1791020057 · focus · HN ↗
    I've worked in wholesale logistics (backend for inventory management) for many years way back when and let me tell you, cost of ink vs cost of a chip the least of the problems. Barcodes (and QR codes as used here) have two major flaws: reading them is challenging (works fine if the package is undamaged and you TRUST that it contains what it says on the box) and they're still just a number. RFID can help with both these issues and the savings from that can outweigh the additional cost by a lot.
    Utility is key and RFID has a lot of advantages over bar codes (and QR codes).
5. pjmlp · 1791012005 · focus · HN ↗
  I am quite sure they still use optical on the German shops.
  1. reubenmorais · 1791012559 · focus · HN ↗
    Nope, at least the Berlin shop is on RFID on all products.
    pjmlp · 1791013174 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, unless they changed on NRW shop on my area since August.
    My diving mask and backpack certainly went through optical.
  2. dgellow · 1791015977 · focus · HN ↗
    Not in Berlin, not in Hamburg
    pjmlp · 1791017685 · focus · HN ↗
    I guess NRW is exceptional, or had broken devices in August.
6. Markoff · 1791014223 · focus · HN ↗
  And what is average price of one product in Decathlon compared to Lidl? Apples and oranges. How do you put RFID on fruit, vegetables and pastry btw. or you propose wrapping everything in unnecessary packaging?
  1. hollow-moe · 1791016390 · focus · HN ↗
    So, depending on the place you don't weigh your vegetables in the aisles anymore, you know: low trust society and such. Either the cashier does it or yourself under the eye of the automated register CCTV. For places that still does they can just migrate to do it at the register and save the price of the barcode stickers and the printer. Pastries are either in boxes already barcoded so just stick an RFID instead or counted at the register by the cashier or yourself too. And nowadays RFID stickers cost nothing at that scale.
7. crote · 1791050685 · focus · HN ↗
  Can any regular smartphone scan those RFID tags? If not, then the QR codes are superior because they can be scanned, making it trivial to use them for product recalls.
byte-sized-snac · 1791010457 · focus · HN ↗
They mention QR code being a link and companies having to store data on their side.
Surely the actual data will be stored in the QR code and available offline
1. [deleted] · 1791011519 · focus · HN ↗
  [deleted]
2. kiallmacinnes · 1791011541 · focus · HN ↗
  As I understand it, The key bits of data are in the QR code, they are just encoded as a URL - a highly structured URL that point of sale systems can decode without visiting the URL.
  Doing it this way means the QR code is directly usable by consumers to get to a product info / marketing page, and directly usable by the POS systems.
  Edit: I looked it up. An example URL:
  <a href="https://example.com/01/09521207311511/21/1234ABDE1235" rel="nofollow">https://example.com/01/09521207311511/21/1234ABDE1235
  01 is a marker before the traditional barcode.
  21 is a marker before the serial number.
  There seems to be many other codes like 17 (expiry date) and 10 (batch number).
  1. alex_suzuki · 1791015923 · focus · HN ↗
    This is correct. The canonical reference is: <a href="https://ref.gs1.org/standards/digital-link/uri-syntax/" rel="nofollow">https://ref.gs1.org/standards/digital-link/uri-syntax/
    adastra22 · 1791019520 · focus · HN ↗
    I am irrationally annoyed that this isn't <a href="https://ref.gs1.org/17/382834828282/21/28312384021" rel="nofollow">https://ref.gs1.org/17/382834828282/21/28312384021
    fragmede · 1791022761 · focus · HN ↗
    404?
    williamtell · 1791026264 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm also a bit irrationally annoyed by the example. You seem like someone who could explain why a barcode URI isn't defined as a proper URN?
    crote · 1791033642 · focus · HN ↗
    Because the consumer has to be able to trivially scan it with their smartphone and get useful information out of it. In reality, that means it has to be a valid URL you can visit with a web browser, as forcing literally everyone to install a proprietary URN-handling app is a dealbreaker.
    The whole point of it is that you can just say "scan the barcode with your smartphone to find out if your product is part of this recall".
    williamtell · 1791055327 · focus · HN ↗
    URN that can be copied and put in any national recall website seems better to me. I don't understand who I am supposed to trust to keep domains with the right content on them instead of porn sites. Seems very high faith for clown town.
  2. ssl-3 · 1791016702 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    kiallmacinnes · 1791018608 · focus · HN ↗
    Absolutely - I 100% expect the links to lead to feel-good marketing fluff at best and end up being useless for consumers, but the stated goals are at least good.
    It's just that, sadly, we can no longer have nice things.
    ssl-3 · 1791020321 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    crote · 1791034284 · focus · HN ↗
    This is already the case. Virtually every single food product comes with an expiration date label - which includes some kind tracking. You pretty much need to have that to do any kind of sensible recall when there's yet another poop lettuce outbreak. Looking at my pantry it usually seems to be include kind of lot number, time of production, and/or production line identifier.
    I reckon they already have a pretty reasonable idea of which store it ends up going to, and with just-in-time resupply a pretty reasonable bound of when it will end up having been sold. Look at the overlap of a few dozen products and it should be quite easy to reduce the number of people who could've bought all of them to just you.
    The QR codes just make this more explicit, and slightly easier to track. You're not wrong, but at least this time we could get, say, automated warnings in the Walmart app of a recall on something you bought out of it.
    ssl-3 · 1791052423 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    cxr · 1791026071 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    petra · 1791026423 · focus · HN ↗
    It's possible to let the chat read the QR code and help the user with it.
    atvcatole · 1791033861 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm also expecting those "redirecting to your regional page" -> "404, can't find this product" situations.
    MayeulC · 1791020534 · focus · HN ↗
    The advantage of using a hyperlink is that consumers do not need an application-specific decoder, they can use their standard reader. And manufacturers can provide additional data (in theory: user manuals, but in practice most likely 404s, tracking and ads).
    As I understand it, fields are standardized. I don't think they contain the name of the product (I didn't read the spec), but the other info is there, so no need to hit the servers/db on other servers.
    As for the quantity of data, Qr codes have special encoding modes depending on the content. The numeric mode uses 3.3 bits per digit, the alphanumeric 5.5 bits per character (45 characters in the set). Switching modes in the stream is supported, though it adds a few bits of overhead.
    Looking at the examples, it looks like the scheme is not as efficient as it could be (pesky slashes, alphanumeric at the end), but that's not too bad either.
    ssl-3 · 1791021478 · focus · HN ↗
    There's ways to shrink the bit cost down, for sure. The commas in my example are particularly expensive, for instance, since commas aren't part of QR's alphanumeric set.
    It was just a quick expression of an idea, presented in the form of a gripe; it's not a formal specification.
    As to consumers, and their hardware: People still get new phones and features can be (and sometimes actually are) added to existing phones. I'm not too worried about it as a constraint; things would catch up soon enough.
    jolmg · 1791021678 · focus · HN ↗
    > The advantage of using a hyperlink is that consumers do not need an application-specific decoder, they can use their standard reader. And manufacturers can provide additional data.
    Until the manufacturer disappears, then you're just left with an unreadable mess of numbers. Even with a CSV-looking thing, you can interpret on your own.
    michaelt · 1791022259 · focus · HN ↗
    > We can even add more real information and still have less data to encode
    The reason they're so verbose comes from a few facts.
    First of all, it's an existing logistics labelling standard, they've just replaced brackets with forward slashes and put a domain name on the front. So <a href="https://example.com/01/09521207311511/21/1234ABDE1235" rel="nofollow">https://example.com/01/09521207311511/21/1234ABDE1235 is just a QR code version of those huge barcodes like (01)09521207311511(21)1234ABDE1235 you see on cases of products in the supermarket.
    Second of all, the standard doesn't limit itself to a single date, so they can't identify dates with a simple ,D prefix. It's a kitchen sink standard [1] with 16 different types of date (production date, due date, packaging date, sell by date, best before date, expiration date, release date, first freeze date, harvest date, production date and time...) and just as many options for sizes and weights - so the identifier can be up to 4 digits. /11/ or /8008/
    The third thing to know is QR codes pack different alphabets at different densities. Numbers at 3.5 bits per character, upper case letters and some symbols at 5.5 bits per character, ASCII at 8 bits per character. So the 13 characters of of "Apple Fuji Sm" uses about as much space in a QR code as a 29-digit number like "12345678901234567890123456789"
    Fourth, you've replaced the 14-digit GTIN with an 11-digit UPC and replace the 13-digit serial number with a 5-digit lot code :)
    IMHO the standard isn't going to take over the world, and anyone who says "Barcodes are about to go extinct" doesn't know what they're talking about. But it's not the information density, it's other reasons.
    [1] <a href="https://ref.gs1.org/ai/" rel="nofollow">https://ref.gs1.org/ai/
jensenbox · 1791011819 · focus · HN ↗
[delayed]
1. reddalo · 1791012596 · focus · HN ↗
  Interesting, but your website looks completely AI-slopped.
  1. keerthiko · 1791013570 · focus · HN ↗
    At a fundamental level, if the website isn't the product, the product has been public-facing and/or created post-2025, and it's not coming from a multi-million funded tech business, I wouldn't dock points for a slopped website — let the team focus on maintaining and using skills related to the actual product, while still having a working website. Even if the visual and textual tone may be off-putting, a decent-looking slopped website is better than no website, I prefer being able to discover and interact with them at all than not.
    Just don't bury the core concept of your product in marketing-slop on your website (this site is certainly pushing that limit for me).
    jensenbox · 1791034767 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  2. onion2k · 1791018683 · focus · HN ↗
    Interesting, but your website looks completely AI-slopped.
    HN readers are probably much deeper down the AI rabbit hole than people who buy barcode software. The fact you see and judge an AI-created website poorly doesn't mean customers of the product will.
    It's possible that you're in the middle of the Venn diagram of barcode software buyers and HN readers though. In that case your comment is very insightful.
    jensenbox · 1791035041 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  3. rjh29 · 1791021207 · focus · HN ↗
    The 2020s equivalent of using clip-art. Fine for most people but looks too generic for a b2b site.
  4. jensenbox · 1791034710 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
2. dflock · 1791014884 · focus · HN ↗
  You need example product pages.
seanmcdirmid · 1791011846 · focus · HN ↗
At family mart in China, some of the pastries are in bags with a QR code and a bar code. If it accidentally scans the QR code the self checkout (not in English) goes into a weird mode and I have to get help. So I just learned to cover the QR code for any packaging that had both it and a bar code on the same side.
1. yoz-y · 1791018977 · focus · HN ↗
  Yeah. But this is a problem this can fix, in theory. Instead of having multiple codes you could just have one with the info for every piece of the chain that needs it.
2. thenthenthen · 1791027643 · focus · HN ↗
  This doesnt happen in English mode? I guess it tries to interpret a payment code but then obviously throws an error. Protip you can scan your products and then show payment code, or tap nfc, no need to touch the screen at any point (except for 18+ products)
  1. sokoloff · 1791035175 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  2. seanmcdirmid · 1791075065 · focus · HN ↗
    Family Mart Kiosks in China don't have an english mode, at least they don't in Chengdu. Anyways, the error screen I'm shunted to felt like it would have been Chinese regardless.
sehw · 1791012623 · focus · HN ↗
They aren't. Sage.
usernamed7 · 1791013134 · focus · HN ↗
I think this is great! i've long wanted a future where i can stock my fridge and cupboards with goods and scan the barcodes in and be tracking what their expirations are to better manage when i need to restock or throw things out
Markoff · 1791014114 · focus · HN ↗
Not what I see in shop at all, I can't think of literally ONE product I bought which wouldn't have barcode.
Reminds me of RFID labels pipe dream.
1. globular-toast · 1791014312 · focus · HN ↗
  In the UK I've noticed some items having 2D barcodes instead of 1D ones lately. Of course, all the scanners have been able to read them all for years now. They're not all QR codes, though. Other 2D barcodes exist.
2. dgellow · 1791015872 · focus · HN ↗
  > Reminds me of RFID labels pipe dream.
  Visit a decathlon when you have time, they’ve been using that since a long time, it’s neat
  1. yoz-y · 1791019046 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, shopping at decathlon feels like stealing honestly. Uniqlo has them too iirc
    notpushkin · 1791024624 · focus · HN ↗
    Never seen this in Decathlon (probably implemented in some countries only), but in Uniqlo it’s like magic every time.
    This won’t work for groceries though: the margins are too thin and there’s too many manufacturers.
  2. _bernd · 1791020374 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes I do really like their self checkout too. Just throw 12 items in the box, quick check and recap but everything was recognized. Pay by card and leave. Its the only self checkout I've experienced which don't make me angry :)
  3. Markoff · 1791044205 · focus · HN ↗
    Been there, not sure what it has to do with doing grocery shopping multiple times a week, you go to Decathlon like 3-4 times a week and not dozens of products reach costing from like 0.1€ to 1-2€ max and they have all individual RFID? Apples and oranges as I said.
sschueller · 1791015382 · focus · HN ↗
GS1 Datamatrix is what I see here locally (Switzerland) starting being used for fresh food like sandwiches which makes sense as it contains the sell by date. This allows them to quickly scan items and sort out what has expired or needs a discount because it's expiring soon.
Sadly food tracking apps still don't read these codes. They are vibe coding new features constantly but not working on adding what is actually important.
Yazio, im talking to you...
1. cricalix · 1791025631 · focus · HN ↗
  Urgh. Yazio. Use it for basic calorie tracking and the camera support. Could do without the gamification. Could really do with "scan barcode, OCR the nutrition table". Manual inputs by the other users has led me to find multiple foods where the kj value was supplied as the kcal value..
  1. XorNot · 1791027006 · focus · HN ↗
    I actually had huge success getting Claude to vibe code in on device OCR lately...it stands to reason that actually it would be pretty simple to implement this in Waistline now...
delichon · 1791016418 · focus · HN ↗
> No one is talking about it. It feels like a meteorite is hitting the planet and no one is paying attention.
An unintentionally appropriate metaphor. How many of the ~17 meteorites that hit the planet per day do you pay attention to?
1. doublerabbit · 1791020305 · focus · HN ↗
  Sixteen of them in hope one is a UFO saucer disguised as a meteorite coming to take me off this planet.
2. bluebarbet · 1791038548 · focus · HN ↗
  You're both wrong. It only becomes a meteorite once embedded in the rock. Until then it's a meteor.
  1. mysterydip · 1791039830 · focus · HN ↗
    Only if it hits the Meteoric region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling rock :)
    m463 · 1791089719 · focus · HN ↗
    Isn't there a metoric rise of affordable california varietals?
  2. gumby · 1791040834 · focus · HN ↗
    Sheesh, does nobody speak English any more? “Meteorites” are the members of that revolutionary faction who support more meteors.
    l1ng0 · 1791105458 · focus · HN ↗
    As opposed to the meteorgettes who are willing to use violence in support of their astronomical cause.
    gumby · 1791126555 · focus · HN ↗
    Don’t let them wear hats or have pockets!!
quietfinding · 1791019353 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
sneusse · 1791020197 · focus · HN ↗
Well, „classic“ barcodes have the advantage that they can span the entire product length. That makes it easier for me at Self-checkout counters. Hard to do with QR codes :)
nmstoker · 1791020515 · focus · HN ↗
I recall all the chat, maybe twelve to fifteen years back when Asian use of QRs took off, thanks to ready availability of mobiles. There were impassioned arguments that it might be fine in those markets but it would never catch on in the West because it was not appealing to consumers who wouldn't want them all over magazines and menus. I never bought that, as fairly quickly the phones came with built in recognition and it was just a matter of time. We saw at table ordering thanks to COVID and many products added QR for consumers even if the shops hadn't pushed it (in the UK at least)
1. rpdillon · 1791022625 · focus · HN ↗
  Been a huge fan of QR codes since the beginning. URLs are awesome, and QR codes are a way of putting links in the real world. Obviously awesome! There was a dark period in the early 2010s where everyone I said this to sent me a link to an empty tumblr "people scanning at codes", but I'm glad they've gotten more traction. Took a trip to Santiago this past week, and they are ubiquitous: from room service and connecting to WiFi to menus in every restaurant. Super cool.
2. nephihaha · 1791024117 · focus · HN ↗
  QR Codes were heavily promoted during the global lockdown.
3. tjoff · 1791027235 · focus · HN ↗
  Context: Back then the user experience was terrible, cameras and phones were so slow that scanning even one code was a painful chore.
  1. mmooss · 1791046046 · focus · HN ↗
    That is the way innovation works. At first the ecosystem around it isn't mature - of course the tools haven't been needed yet - and people use that to support their claim that the innovation is fundamentally broken. The ecosystem will work itself out (unless there are significant technical barriers).
    tjoff · 1791053492 · focus · HN ↗
    What innovation are we talking about?
4. mmooss · 1791045943 · focus · HN ↗
  It's entirely predictable: First they ridicule it; second they say it violates existing norms for how things are done; third they say they accepted it all along.
  That trite saying is very real. You're describing stage 2. Stage 2 is a good signal that the development has enough power to be difficult to ridicule.
jimnotgym · 1791021683 · focus · HN ↗
Prediction.... 'about to', will mean over the next fewdecades. Retail product barcodes may be the fastest to go, over the next 2 decades. Other uses, like self printed labels for warehouse stock control will be here for the foreseeable. You might install a new Manufacturing Execution System in 20 years that supports it. But the Warehouse Management System and ERP don't...
1. jillesvangurp · 1791023425 · focus · HN ↗
  There are several things happening:
  - Retail 2D codes are being rolled out at scale from next year already in many markets; 2d codes will be on many products in the supermarket. Preparations for this have been ongoing for quite long. Mostly scanners have been ready for this for some time. Most recent hardware should handle all this fine. Scanners that don't handle 2D will rapidly disappear.
  - For industrial use, QR codes are already quite common. Use of QR codes is much less about replacing existing bar codes with QR codes and more about completely new uses for QR codes. You are right that most factories won't do invasive changes in their setups unless there's a good reason. But efficiency improvements tend to be a good reason.
  I was at the Logimat fair in Stuttgart earlier this year. Lots of companies demonstrating scanners, sticker printing, camera modules, and all the rest. There are a lot of companies actively pushing all sorts of solutions around 2D codes.
  1. cricalix · 1791025785 · focus · HN ↗
    If someone works out how to print a 2D code that can be read when wrapped on a 2mm diameter cable (with a single scan, no rolling/twisting of the cable as it's fibre optic) I'll be interested. For now, regular Code128 style codes are the only ones that work reliably on cables that small.
    raron · 1791039472 · focus · HN ↗
    How do you exactly define "no rolling/twisting of the cable"?
    For a quick test I projected a flat QR code onto the surface of a cylinder, printed the distorted image on a household printer, wrapped the paper around a 3 mm diameter wire. The result is readable from a still image made by a smartphone.
    It haven't worked with 2 mm image / cable, but I'm pretty sure that's just limit of my printer's resolution. With 600 DPI there is only 2-3 dots per QR code pixel.
    You could repeat that pattern with few degrees of rotation so one will always be in the right enough orientation to decode.
    gumby · 1791040970 · focus · HN ↗
    Maybe use a hologram
    MisterMunchkin · 1791044880 · focus · HN ↗
    Why couldn’t you just fasten a label to the cable?
    fragmede · 1791048578 · focus · HN ↗
    it's gonna get torn or ripped off more easily than something that's on the cable itself.
    Brian_K_White · 1791051033 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure, a 1d object is best served by a 1d code. There are always a variety of jobs that need their own solutions. Just like there are jobs that need the label to be e-ink instead of ink.
2. michaelt · 1791028056 · focus · HN ↗
  Linear barcodes aren't going extinct any time soon.
  Instead, we'll see an IPv6 style transition, with some early adopters and others having no reason to change over.
  Makers of short-life products like pre-packaged sushi will be at the front of the line as they get real benefits from tracking dates and batches throughout the supply chain. Retailers accidentally selling expired sushi does genuine reputational damage.
  Makers of long-life products, though? That 24-pack of cans of diet coke has its barcode printed by the box factory, not the canning factory. Putting the expiry date in the barcode would be a total hassle, for very little benefit. If forced to, they'll just print the QR code next to the linear barcode, with exactly the same data.
  And even if a retailer has the market power to bully their suppliers - there's no motivation to do so for non-fresh products. All commercial scanners that can read QR codes can also read linear barcodes. Wal-Mart doesn't lose anything if their bleach supplier keeps using a linear barcode.
  1. RaftPeople · 1791055144 · focus · HN ↗
    Your analysis is exactly correct.
    1D barcode is like CSV, it's not going away, it's too simple/useful/cheap.
BatchJob · 1791021915 · focus · HN ↗
QR codes will not likely be used to their potential. They are being used as 1D bar codes. I have seen products with several QR codes all over different parts and in the manuals. Usually if you scan them going to a useless homepage or a manual that does not specifically refer to the thing being scanned without an exhaustive search.
Remember the most important fact about these codes: Nobody cares.
1. petra · 1791027781 · focus · HN ↗
  Sure,nobody cares.
  But if my phone automatically tells me about stuff in my fridge :
  -The cheese has expired or about to be expired
  -There's a recall on that baby formula
  That's useful.
  Or if uses those smart carts at the supermarket, it can tell me:
  -this isn't safe with my peanut allergy
  -this isn't ethically sourced
  -the expiry date is too short
  1. grvbck · 1791040983 · focus · HN ↗
    Useful, but "your phone" will probably not the be the one telling you that. You'll have to use your supermarket app, and better be sure it will do all it can to track and extract every last bit of information about you and the contents of your fridge.
    You're only buying eggs every second week? We can't have that, let's present you with a recipe that uses eggs. You still have those cookies you bought four days ago? Let's give you a coupon for milk.
    And there will be a nice recipe or a coupon or a Very Limited Exclusive Offer you'll need to send to a friend, so now the app need access to your contacts, and why not sync that info with Meta, and oh look at that, we have a map of all our customers and their spending habits and geographical location and political orientation.
thinkp26 · 1791023971 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
youngtaff · 1791024170 · focus · HN ↗
Nah…
Barcodes are easy and cheap to read in a way that QR codes aren’t (particularly complex ones)
Any old cheap laser scanner will read a barcode and they can be made at large sizes e.g. how Aldi use them on products in the UK to make self scan faster
QR codes need a camera, their complexity goes up as more data is encoded in them so require better cameras especially is high speed situations
They both have places in the world and will co-exist for years to come
1. crote · 1791051232 · focus · HN ↗
  Most barcode scanners are already cameras, actually. Turns out that it is a lot cheaper to manufacture than the old "put a mirror on a moving 2d servo assembly" approach - and it's more reliable as well.
  You can get an entry-level barcode scanner from a reputable brand with 2d support for less than 100 bucks, and you'll have trouble finding any kind of premium scanner which doesn't have 2d support.
  1. Ekaros · 1791051735 · focus · HN ↗
    And cheap generic one for about fourth or third of that... With some software bugs, but still surprisingly capable. Like reading kilobyte sized QR codes.
    Got cheap one from China that does my uses cases pretty well. Supports USB, proprietary wireless and BT...
    There is cheaper models with less features. Pointing towards quite a lot of market segmentation. And I could guess some of those models are same but with different firmware...
  2. youngtaff · 1791064917 · focus · HN ↗
    If camera’s are cheaper then why do supermarkets stick to lasers?
    I’ve worked in areas where barcodes and QR codes were used for automation — we used both but for fast, cheap and reliable scanning barcodes were the winner
    Where more data needed to be encoded then QR codes were used but the wuality and price of cameras needed to read QR codes as items came based on an automated line was significantly more costly than QR codes
mariuolo · 1791024766 · focus · HN ↗
QR codes are a bit more fragile than barcodes though. A scratch or a stain can make them unreadable.
Are there studies on how that might affect logistics?
1. benashford · 1791025359 · focus · HN ↗
  Isn't it the other way around? QR codes have built-in error correction whereas barcodes typically don't (beyond a single check-digit, which is more error detection rather than correction, and even that depends on the information being encoded) so can sustain a surprisingly large amount of damage and still be readable.
  Indeed, I often see QR codes which have been deliberately damaged for the visual impact (e.g. chunks missing to make a pleasing shape, or place an arbitrary logo in the centre). They still work due to the error correction but now there's no redundancy left and one additional piece of damage might literally make it unreadable.
2. CTDOCodebases · 1791028478 · focus · HN ↗
  Not at all. I worked apart time job delivering parcels that were scanned with a specialized bar code scanner. Most of the parcels had dual barcode/QR codes for the tracking number. You would be surprised how much damage could be done to the QR codes before they were unreadable. Even if the barcode had small folds over itself the codes would still read.
  1. mariuolo · 1791090580 · focus · HN ↗
    Good to know. I must have been misled back in lockdown days when some people sabotaged QR codes on purpose by adding a few dots with permanent markers.
    BenjiWiebe · 1791169849 · focus · HN ↗
    When you generate a QR code you can choose the level of redundancy. So a code can be generated that is super picky and needs to be perfect to scan, or one can be generated that can be read even when badly damaged.
bombcar · 1791026679 · focus · HN ↗
If the Pamper's app is anything to go by, the QR codes will fail to be read, and the older "text recognition of the printed code" will keep working.
max-ch · 1791028116 · focus · HN ↗
I work for a global consumer goods company - we print probably billions of (1d) bar codes on packs per year.
1d bar codes will go extinct, but only after every scanning system at every retailer has changed to recognize 2d bar codes/qr codes. This will likely take decades.
In the meantime, there will be a world where 2d bar codes and 1d bar codes will coexist on packs. With the additional confusion that many packs already have qr codes, either for consumer information or for internal tracking at the plant (batches for quality control), so we will probably have a little zoo of qr codes for a while, until they all finally can be merged.
1. wildzzz · 1791031283 · focus · HN ↗
  How do manufacturers print QR codes on packaging that potentially could change daily, like in the case for expiration dates? 1D barcodes don't ever change so they can be easily printed in mass on the packaging.
  1. crote · 1791033368 · focus · HN ↗
    On-demand printing. It's how expiration dates are currently already being printed on products during production. The only difference is that it goes from "put it literally anywhere" to "put it inside the space intentionally left blank".
2. crote · 1791032844 · focus · HN ↗
  And that's exactly why they went with QR codes. The 2D barcode for checkout just contains a valid URL in a well-known format, so it can do double-duty as link-providing QR code for customer information. And because QR codes can store a lot of data, adding the batch information from the current tracking-only Datamatrix is trivial.
  There will be no "wrong" barcodes to scan, just redundant ones for legacy devices.
3. joezydeco · 1791041134 · focus · HN ↗
  If you look at ALDI, they print multiple 1D bar codes that take the entire length of the box. This greatly decreases the time needed at the checkout stand to orient and scan the box.
  <a href="https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/12/one-stick-butter-five-https-739685348.jpg?resize=300" rel="nofollow">https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2024/12/o...
  I don't see chains like ALDI agreeing to anything else until they can prove the same speed and accuracy as the mega-1D print.
  1. ondra · 1791060347 · focus · HN ↗
    Now that self-checkout passes large part of the scanning costs to the end user, this doesn't seem to be a big issue anymore.
    earthtograndma · 1791061517 · focus · HN ↗
    ALDI ditched self-checkout. Folks were too slow and/or thieves.
    BonnieBrown · 1791069912 · focus · HN ↗
    Didn't ditch at the one near me. They greatly expanded self checkout actually and are down to 1 lane with an employee ringing people up as opposed to ~12 self checkout stations
4. _the_inflator · 1791042438 · focus · HN ↗
  I can confirm that. Barcodes are in increased demand, since they offer an almost universal API to the physical world, kind of the not-IoT devices.
  Jevons paradox in full force.
5. pseudohadamard · 1791123762 · focus · HN ↗
  Also, QR codes are a bar code.
  What I found amusing is that the article claiming bar codes are dead is being displayed on devices with dozens if not hundreds of components with bar codes (matrix codes) on them.
pards · 1791028177 · focus · HN ↗
Does encoding URLs in QR codes expose the scanners to quishing[0] attacks, such as bad actors sticking malicious QR codes over legit ones?
[0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing#QR_code_phishing_(quishing)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing#QR_code_phishing_(qui...
1. crote · 1791034412 · focus · HN ↗
  Yes, but it's no different from the QR codes already present on many consumer products. In fact, it is easier to spot, as either a cashier (or someone at a self-checkout) is likely to notice that there's a sticker over the barcode and get suspicious that there's some kind of fraud going on.
2. jensenbox · 1791035701 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
  1. crote · 1791050513 · focus · HN ↗
    People have been making the claim for at least 20 years, and it still hasn't materialized yet. The problem is that it is a nontrivial increase in manufacturing cost, and you only get a benefit out of it when every product in the store has adopted it. If you want per-product RFID tags, you first got to convince an entire industry to eat a significant cost increase for a few years.
    Besides, it has gotten less attractive over time. With the rise of self-checkout stores no longer save on cashiers by switching to RFID. The kind of tag to support "scan an entire basket at once" isn't compatible with being scanned by a NFC-enabled smartphone, so you can't use them for extra recall information either.
    Serialized printing is basically a solved problem by now. I have several dozen products using it in my kitchen pantry right now, and none of them suffer from smearing or have low resolutions - and I can guarantee you they were rapidly and automatically applied in mass produciton.
jamesnorden · 1791029014 · focus · HN ↗
Fun fact: QR codes are about 80% depleted. /s
singpolyma3 · 1791029050 · focus · HN ↗
QR codes are just a type of barcode...
newswangerd · 1791029706 · focus · HN ↗
This is very similar to IPv6. Sure, the new standard solves a lot of problems, but it also has to fight decades worth of existing infrastructure.
1. jensenbox · 1791035753 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
mo9527 · 1791034597 · focus · HN ↗
ipipai is
someonebaggy · 1791040922 · focus · HN ↗
Don't get emotionally attached to protocols. Preserve them as history, but never feel obligated to keep using a protocol that doesn't fit your needs any more. Cough IRC, email
1. jmalicki · 1791048405 · focus · HN ↗
  > Cough IRC, email
  Luckily the first, and increasingly the second, are being replaced by Slack!
m3047 · 1791047537 · focus · HN ↗
Here is the timeline:
"In 1992, on a factory floor in a Toyota auto-parts subsidiary in Japan, workers were drowning in barcodes."
(collect underpants)
"And that decision is about to change every single thing you buy."
I think recognizing packaging sounds like an ideal use for AGI. Boil them oceans, not the eggs.
shpx · 1791050371 · focus · HN ↗
QR codes are really ugly artifacts, completely inhuman. It would be better and more technologically advanced if instead we had really good OCR for a printed text code or skip product codes entirely and scanners just use vision to see what the object is.
1. emj · 1791058610 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
2. calmworm · 1791058774 · focus · HN ↗
  The trajectory of this is heavily optimized packaging design, isn’t it? Which overshoots simple codes integrated with any design.
tweedler290 · 1791051388 · focus · HN ↗
honestly with computer vision so OP now QR and barcodes should be dead. like here's a (probable) easy fix: make a hella contrasty square 1x1. location of a single dot inside it determines the product. the precision of locating that dot reliably? train a vision model hella hard
leowoo91 · 1791113626 · focus · HN ↗
[delayed]

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