What does this even mean? This trend frequently happens especially on HN and it denies the reader a chance at weighing up the solution within context of the problem.
I would highly recommend buying a used Metrologic or Datalogic handheld scanner at or above $50, it'll work a lot better and (if programmed) can usually handle 2D barcodes. This is the major reason you see Fred Meyers spending $5k a pop on new Datalogic 9800i's, and why Walmart had the NCR 7878 custom built for them, scanning performance is a make it or break it deal.
On the Pi side, I'd sub in a OrangePi Plus 2E since it has 16GB of eMMC and has a fully libre stack now at a lower cost, and would likely nab a used monitor for $10 locally rather than pay for a low res 7" at a premium price.
Thank you for the advice with the hardware, I'm not yet too familiar with the hardware side, but I'm learning and your feedback is really important to me, thank you.
I tested the barcode scanner with quite a few products and thought it to be pretty good for the money. I mean, for me it's a personal thing, so no need for super high performance. If the item is already in the system, you can scan 2-3 times per second, which is pretty good i think.
I'll definitely look up the PI and monitor part thank you !
Disagree. I have a very similar barcode scanner[1] to manage my book library, and it works perfectly over 99% of the time. It also scans every type of barcode I've thrown at it.
The bigger problem is grocery box designers who think it's funny to print the barcode onto dark backgrounds - I think that's where the el-cheapo scanners struggle.
Instead of investing in a tethered scanner, wouldn't a better option be to use a smartphone camera and an app?
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[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Link-Barcode-Scanner-Reader-Read...
(Out of stock now, but I think it cost me ~£30 [$37])
I'm looking for any such (fully libre, no blobs, not even in firmware) hardware, but I haven't found anything so far except for some heavily modified old Thinkpads running Libreboot (sold by a vendor with shit customer support, as in delivering months late and not communicating for weeks at a time).
It does have the nice side effect that most projects are not polluted by marketing bullshit in their README.
In short, the problem was, that we always had like 10 bottles of ketchup in our basement, because we never knew that we still have this many... So we ended up buying the stuff we already had and still forgot the things we needed. So we had to go again.
This way, you can easily VPN into your home network and search for the things you need and not the ones from which you still have enough.