Barcodes have existed for more than half a century and we grew up seeing them on all the labels and products. But even since the QR codes became popular, we all started needing a code scanning app installed on our smartphones. This is necessary because sometimes we have no other way but to scan the QR code to reveal the message. For example, there are many restaurants that allow scanning of the QR code to give you a waiting number. When your turn comes up, you can enter the establishment and enjoy your lunch or dinner.
Similarly, almost all the smartwatches have a QR code inside them which must be scanned to download the respective app for Android or iPhone. For all these purposes, we can use an app for Android called Binary Eye. This one app is enough to scan any kind of barcode, QR code or other codes. It supports AZTEC, CODABAR, CODE 39, CODE 93, CODE 128, Data Matrix, EAN 8, EAN 13, ITF, Maxicode, PDF417, QR code, RSS 14, RSS expanded, UPC A, UPC E and UPC EAN extension etc.
The app is very light and works right out of the box. It can use both the front and back camera of a phone. Typically, we have to use the rear camera to scan the codes and it will recognize the code followed by decoding it. It also displays a hex dump of the code in addition to its raw text format.
In the settings for the Binary Eye app, we can restrict the scanning of just one or a limited number of code types. When we limit the scanning to just one type of code, the scanning works faster. We choose to scan vertical 1D barcodes, store the scanned codes in the clipboard, keep the history of the scanned codes and more.
You can get the Binary Eye app for Android from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.markusfisch.android.binaryeye.