[dangrossman]

Based on the comments, I'm guessing few poeople here have ever worked retail and held a barcode scanner.

Break out your phone, load up your barcode scanning app (there's 20 seconds right there even if the phone is in your pocket). Now try to actually scan something with it. You'll spend another 30 seconds lining up the little on-screen window with the code, rotating things, waiting for the camera to focus, and even having to move to another location if you're not in bright lighting. It's a terrible experience and that's why you don't see stores checking people out using the camera of an iPad.

A barcode scanner, on the other hand, just works. You point it in the general vicinity of the barcode, press the button, and it's scanned. You don't have to perfectly align anything, be in specific lighting, or wait for a camera and an app. I'm sure you've seen cashiers run multiple things over a scanner in under a second.

Amazon Dash isn't just a subset of your phone's functionality. It's a dedicated barcode scanner, which is hardware you don't have on your phone.

[larrys]

Good points (I like especially the fact that you incorporate real life experience). Although I've never worked retail I've had businesses where we've printed bar codes and had to use a scanner to test them for accuracy.

Anyway with respect to this:

"It's a dedicated barcode scanner"

So I would expect then if the amazon device turns out to be a hit that a dedicated bar code scanner might be incorporated into the functionality of a smartphone. Where if it was waved over a bar code you'd get a screen where you could then take action (or not). After amazon proves the market of course. (Like with Kindle).

I don't think that this necessarily means that an amazon device wouldn't have a use though. It would still come in handy for other purposes and at other times.

[zem]

yes, i discovered the limitations of phone barcode apps during a brief, abortive attempt to scan in my book collection. it was simply too painful and i gave up early.

[mattmanser]

In England we have a lot of self-serve counters with scanners built in. Is that not something Americans have yet?

Anyway, it doesn't 'just work'. Often you stand there like a lemon trying to scan again and again. You can pick out the people who've barely used them as they always take an age to scan everything.

And each major supermarket has their own version of these things and they're all equally as cumbersome to use, so I think barcode scanning gets easy with practice but it definitely doesn't 'just work'.

[jonknee]

Lemons are a good example of something that works poorly for self checkout. They are small and round which is hard to have a barcode label displayed on. They're worried about weight and that you aren't stealing. It's often much easier to scan a barcode when you're holding the scanner and not the object.

Though in this case, you could also just say "lemons" and be done with it.

[mattmanser]

Like a lemon's an idiom, sorry! I just meant that it takes a while to get good at scanning.

[saraid216]

I have personally completely given up on scanning QR codes and barcodes with a camera phone. It's just never worth it.

[SteveDeFacto]

Sears does use a type of cell phone for checkout but it does seem to have a modified camera with a laser scanner instead. Something more interesting would have been a new type of amazon smart phone with built in laser scanner and some extra buttons for scan/talk.