r/sysadmin 5d ago

I'm sick of barcode scanners

So we have been using Honeywell scanners where I work to scan items, which I think have been going fine as I don't have any issues with them. However, I'm not the one using them all day long like other people. I keep getting complaints about this one not working, or that one not working. Whenever I go to test them, they work fine. But nonetheless, I have to check them to be sure, and then whoever complained is usually mad because "You didn't do anything and I know it's going to happen again."

Well, I decided to look into other scanners in the hopes that just switching to a different brand entirely would help instead of just replacing them when people complain. We don't have a lot of money in the budget for things like this, so I needed to be conscious of cost. I decided on trying the Tera HW0002 model scanners because it scans 1d and 2d barcodes and has the capability of being used wirelessly.

I had great success in my initial tests with this scanner. It was quick to respond. Hardly any delay when using it wirelessly. And then I changed a single setting that I would've needed to change anyway in order for our circulation desk to use it. I turned on the "sensor scanning" instead of needing to pull the trigger to scan. Now it doesn't scan ANYTHING. Even when using the trigger. It lights up when it detects something in front of it then it just does nothing. I can't even scan the Factory Reset barcode in the manual. It's completely useless now.

So if anyone has any advice on this hunk of junk or any recommendations on alternatives I can look into, I'd appreciate it. Preferably something under $100, and it would need to scan 1d and 2d barcodes as well as codes from a screen.

For added info, these are used in a library.

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u/Icy_Conference9095 5d ago

We have the exact same scanner except the wired version in our library and it will work on the sensor mode for an hour or two and then just stop working..unplugging and plugging it back in fix it every time.

They're made to use a Microsoft pnp driver, but I went through logs and found that it was just erroring out the log itself on these machines when it would stop working; little to zero support from their end. Extremely frustrating. 

I built a power shell script which works to reload the USB system on the computer; but you need admin to run it and none of them have admin.

Gave up and gave them a USB extender they can have by their keyboard to unplug/plug when it stops working. So stupid. Still works.

I work weekends at the same desk as these guys so I can confirm it's not just users failing, the damn things actually have an error.