Hacker News Reader

Comment by zdw | Hacker News Reader

Forget about the phone market for a second.

What I want is for Android to replace Windows Mobile 5 in all those annoying Symbol barcode scanner and other data entry devices - ever priced them out? $1500-2000 for a basic model on a dead-end platform with horrible dev support.

I really want to know where are the industrial portables based on Android or another unix variant? Imagine being able to write a web app with hooks into all the data entry bells and whistles that a device like that could have.

View on HN

This is already happening with the iPod Touch.

I'm currently working on a similar project for a large retail company. We're using the Linea-Pro [1] cradle, which has both a barcode and magnetic strip reader. (Same device as used in Apple stores.)

[1] http://www.ipclineapro.com/

Wow! That's awesome. Any idea how expensive the cradle is? I hate spending $1500 for an MC70 with crappy touchscreen.

I wasn't able to find LineaPro pricing, but Adwords found a competitor: LightSpeed - http://www.xsilva.com/en/store.html

Entry mobile device hardware is $1000.

I think the cradle goes for about $500. Add any iPod Touch and you're still under a grand for each device.

They have a very nice Cocoa API for the device as well. I've had a blast developing for it.

LightSpeed is actually an entire retail service stack which uses the Linea-Pro cradle for their mobile platform. Most of the cost is licensing their retail software. Your $1,000 quote is a bit off...

From the pricing page:

    In order to purchase a Bundle including the 
    LightSpeed Mobile Hardware Kit, at least 2
    user licenses need to be added to your order. [1]

So that's a baseline of $1,823. When you toggle on the "Mobile Hardware Kit" the price jumps by $549, which sounds about right for the hardware and setup.

I do contract iOS dev work, so feel free to ping me if you're looking into this sort of thing.

[1] http://www.xsilva.com/en/store.html

Until they start competing in price instead of features, expect to pay the same $1500.

I've wondered this too, considering the ease with which you can clone ASOP and throw it on an ARM device. Perhaps it is something like the proverbial "enterprise" software markets, where sales trump technology?

I'm currently working in this space and I can honestly tell you it's not a conspiracy or anything...these manufacturers are just 4-5 years behind the curve and are just waking up to the possibilities of using an Android-type O/S on these devices. To be fair, Android isn't really ready to jump into the custom embedded GUI area just yet either. It's almost there.

A lot of them see Android and think either a) it's a phone O/S, b) I can get a GUI up and running just as well with WinCE6, or c) I don't want customers installing custom apps on my barcode reader.

The more enterprising engineers that are mobile O/S knowledgeable are busy writing apps and/or making bank by consulting.

And forget Symbol. They're owned by Motorola now so it'll be a few years before they figure things out.

I thought most of those still ran Palm OS... at least the ones I´ve paid attention to while it stores sure look like it.

the advantage the Symbols have over iPhones though is they're practically unbreakable.

You already get ruggidized Android phones, like the Motorola Defy, but if you're building the whole platform (rather than just a dongle for an iDevice) you could probably go even further e.g. lose the screen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com