Following last month’s prediction from Gartner¹ that companies using Google Glass or other wearable devices could save $1billion a year in field service costs within the next five years, Scandit, the developer of software-based enterprise barcode scanning and data capture technology for smartphones, tablets and wearable computing devices, has confirmed that the new version of its Barcode Scanner SDK will deliver highly optimized support for Glass, leveraging Scandit’s unique blurry scanning and dynamic range capabilities to the fullest extent.
Designed to enable powerful applications for both the consumer and business markets, the new Scandit release will be compatible with Google’s new Glass Development Kit, and Scandit is already working closely with application developers to match its wide range of features and functionality to the specific requirements of Glass.
“We’re enhancing our software to support Glass-based barcode scanning so that businesses can fully exploit the potential that wearable smart glasses can bring to the enterprise,” said Samuel Mueller, CEO at Scandit. “We predict that in the enterprise, Glass and similar wearable devices will enable ‘hands free’ inventory management, procurement and asset tracking allowing an employee to look at a barcode on a carton, or a pallet, say ‘scan’ and retrieve associated data, or capture data for recording inventory. ”
In its predictions for wearable ‘smartglasses’, Gartner pointed out that the ‘hands free’ element of the technology would be a major factor in its growth, particularly in industries with employees working off-site, such as field service, healthcare and manufacturing. Whilst less than 1% of companies are using ‘smartglasses’ currently, Gartner predicts that in five years, 10% of organisations with field service workers will have taken up the technology.
“Two of the fastest growing enterprise sectors for Scandit are manufacturing and logistics,” continued Samuel Mueller. “Both of these are heavily dependent on barcode scanning and we are excited by Gartner’s predictions, which match our own expectations and will inform the way that our technology is developed. We also see massive opportunities in other industries, such as retail, automotive, entertainment and the public sector, and we believe that the commercial arrival of wearable computers will herald an entirely new era of innovation and development, which should ultimately result in scanning and image recognition capability being embedded into a whole range of other devices, such as contact lenses.”
Scandit has a customer base of 10,000 organisations in over 80 countries including brands such as CapitalOne, Saks 5th Avenue, Shopkick, Nasa, Yusen Logistics in the US and Bayer and Coop in Europe. It has built its business on the software-based delivery of barcode scanning and data capture capabilities for smartphone, tablet and wearable devices. The Scandit Barcode Scanner SDK enables mobile devices to scan barcodes quickly, effortlessly and accurately from any angle, even in not-ideal conditions, and supports a variety of platforms and barcode types. Scandit works closely with developers and system integrators and focusses on enabling and delivering high-quality identification and data capture applications for the retail, manufacturing and logistics industries.
About Scandit
Scandit enables retail, manufacturing and logistics businesses to maximize operational performance and drive new revenue streams via enterprise-grade barcode scanning, OCR and data capture software for smartphones, tablets and wearable devices. With over 10,000 licensees in over 80 countries, Scandit’s mobile scan technology and associated cloud services is the platform of choice for many of the world’s most prestigious brands including Ahold, Saks 5th Avenue, Capital One, Homeplus (Tesco), Nasa, Bayer and Coop, empowering consumers and employee use cases ranging from self-scanning, mobile shopping and mobile point of sale to inventory management and asset tracking. Founded in 2009 by a group of researchers from MIT, ETH Zurich and IBM Research, today Scandit and its network of global integration and technology partners are pushing the boundaries of mobile AIDC (automatic identification and data capture) and developments in the ‘Internet of Things’ arena to deliver ground-breaking identification and data capture applications to customers.
Further information:
Ascendant Communications
Tel: +44 (0) 208 334 8041
Receive the Funding Newswire each Tuesday, our Policy Bulletin each Thursday, and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
A unique international forum for public research organisations and companies to connect their external engagement with strategic interests around their R&D system.
