Read a USB scanner as a device, not as a keyboard

August 9, 2026

A handheld barcode scanner pretends to be a keyboard, and no website is allowed to read a keyboard. :app now talks to the scanner over USB instead — which takes one setting on the scanner and one grant in your browser, and then works on every page.

Open a line to read the whole story behind it.

• New A USB scanner section in your profile: connect a handheld over USB and every page reads it.

  A USB scanner section in your profile. Switch your handheld out of keyboard mode using the barcode in its booklet — HID-POS or virtual COM — press connect, and pick it from the list your browser shows. From then on, scanning a label anywhere on that computer opens what it names. The page tells you what your browser can do before you start, and has a test area that shows exactly what a scan sent, character by character, so a scanner that reads slightly wrong can be spotted rather than quietly filing things in the wrong place. It works in Chrome, Edge and Opera on a computer.

• Improved Scanning no longer has a page of its own, because every page reads a connected scanner.

  The Scan entry has gone from the menu, and scanning no longer has a page of its own. It never needed one: with a scanner connected, every page reads it. If a code turns out to be nothing you have, the page you are already on says so and shows you what it read, instead of moving you somewhere else first — and still offers to add a product with that barcode filled in.

• New A new page lists which label printers, rolls, scanners, phones and browsers have been checked.

  A new page lists what :app works with: which label printers, label rolls, scanners, phones, tablets and browsers have actually been checked, which have not been tried yet, and which cannot work at all — each with the reason. It also tells you what the browser you are reading it in can do, so you can find out whether your own phone will scan before you sign up for anything.

• Improved The label roll list now follows the printer above it, leaving only rolls that printer can print.

  The label roll list now follows the printer above it. Choosing a printer leaves only the rolls that printer can actually print, and if the roll you had picked is not one of them the choice comes back to you rather than being swapped for something you never asked for. It works the same in your profile, on a location and on a print station.

• Fixed The code shown beside a signed-in device works again, so a phone that was signed out can come back.

  Signing a device in again works. Scanning the code shown beside a device under Signed-in devices said the code was no longer valid, however fresh it was, so a phone that had been signed out could not be brought back without pairing it as a new device. The code was live the whole time; only the page reading it was wrong.