I've been really wanting a system like this, but it's just so hard to get a new FOSS app off the ground, and I don't really want to maintain another app by myself, plus apps without a server are hard and I'd rather not self host anything.

It would be so cool to have some kind of generic manager for entity relations and metadata. You could scan a box, then hit a link type button like "Is near" or "Should contain" "Is checked out by", and it would keep it all in a SyncThing folder.

Maybe one of these days I'll find my old notes on building something like that, and try to make an MVP as a web app or something.

EPC Gen2 modules are cheap enough now that a consumer level $100 scanner to directly scan the items themselves, rather than a box code, seems completely possible, but it seems too time consuming unless you want to start a whole business around them.

All cataloguing/indexing software I know of is kinda bad. Especially if you're not running a whole library/collection. The open source projects in this space are under cooked[0], and the enterprise ones are expensive and labyrinthine in use.

Maybe Access or some other DBMS would be better suited.

[0] https://itsfoss.com/open-source-library-management-software/