Scanning

Point your phone at a barcode, or take a photo of something without one, and Cobblr works out what it is. You confirm and file the result in the Scan Inbox.

The loop:

1. Open the scanner (the camera button in the top bar on your phone).
2. Hold it on one barcode after another. It reads continuously, no shutter. Press the shutter only for something with no barcode.
3. Everything lands in the inbox. The camera never files anything, so you can shoot a whole shelf without stopping.
4. In the Scan Inbox, confirm each item (or a whole batch) into one of your tables, with a location.

What to point it at

Could you find a picture of this thing on the internet? Then Cobblr probably can too. Stop at the first step that applies:

1. Still have the packaging? Start there. The box usually has a barcode and says exactly what the item is.
2. A barcode on the item itself? Scan it.
3. Writing or a label that says what it is? Photograph that: the model name, the spec sticker, the tag.
4. None of the above? Take a picture of the item itself and Cobblr will try to work out what it is.

A barcode is looked up in product catalogs, and a photo is identified by vision. Nothing is saved until you confirm it. Scan the pile first, sort it afterward.

The camera

• The capture drawer appears above the shutter after every shot: the photo, the name once identified, a quantity stepper, and Undo for a mis-scan. Ignoring it is fine. Swipe it up for the full sheet: cover photo, name, quantity, and location while the thing is in your hand.
• ＋ Photo arms the shutter so the next shot joins the item you just captured instead of becoming a second record. Retake replaces the photo and re-identifies.
• Choose (beside the shutter) attaches a picture already on your phone: a listing screenshot, a spec sheet. A chosen picture is attached only. It will not rename the item or become its main picture unless you make it primary.
• A barcode result shows as a Scanned sheet: Save & next, Discard, or Not it, retake (re-identifies from your own shot). All three work the instant the sheet opens, even mid-lookup.
• Light and zoom handle themselves. The flash comes on when a scan is failing in dim light, not just because the room is dark. Auto-zoom, any angle. Manual flash sits next to the shutter.

Camera details: what each control does at the edges

Reading a barcode also keeps the picture from that instant, so one scan gives you the code and a photo. The photo is what tells a single unit from the nine-pack carrying the same UPC, and it reads serial numbers or service tags printed nearby.

A photo that fails to save stays in the drawer with a Retry, so a dead spot costs nothing. While a sheet is open the viewfinder dims and barcode reading pauses, so a stray code can't interrupt an edit. The next capture always starts with the sheet closed. While ＋ Photo is armed the shutter turns gold and barcode reading pauses (labels usually carry codes of their own). A code that isn't a product barcode (a serial, an asset tag) gets no guessed name. The photo does the identifying.

A picture you take and a picture you choose are treated differently on purpose: a photo you take now is the thing in front of you, so it can become the main picture and help identify. A chosen file is more often a screenshot than the object, so it is attached without changing anything. Use the re-identify button on it if you want it read.

Auto-flash lights a failing barcode within about a second, while plain darkness with nothing scannable has to hold for a few seconds first, so glancing at a dark shelf does not turn it on. It goes off when the scan lands or lighting improves, and stays off for the session if you switch it off by hand. Auto-zoom steps gently, holds while reading, and widens when nothing is in view.

If scanning misbehaves on a device, add ?diag=1 to the scanner URL for a live readout (decode engine, lenses, autofocus, zoom and torch support, decode timings, one tap to copy). ?zoom=N fixes zoom by hand, ?scandelay=N and ?lens=... try a different cadence or lens.

Scanning a VIN

Point the camera at a car's door-jamb barcode and you get a record already named ("2022 Toyota Corolla Hatchback") with make, model, year, body, trim, fuel, and the color read from the paint code on the same label. Typing a VIN into a vehicle form fills the same fields.

How VIN decoding behaves

The 17-character VIN identifies the exact car. The details come from a lookup against the free NHTSA database. The code's shape decides the route, so a UPC still heads to the product catalogs. Only empty fields are filled, nothing you typed is overwritten, and a bad or partial VIN says so instead of guessing. A garbled scan is repaired only when the VIN's own check digit proves the fix. Works on the Vehicles bundle and any table with make, model, and year fields.

Serial numbers

A serial or service tag the photo can read files into the item's Serial number field, exactly as printed. The reverse works with no setup: scan a serial you already track and Cobblr opens that record. If two things share the serial, it asks which you're holding. The field is relabelable per table ("Service tag", "VIN").

The inbox

Everything you scan waits in the Scan Inbox until you file it, and that page has its own guide: what each row's button means, the phone card and the desktop card, filing a session in one go, the things you already have, pictures, and the tools behind the menus.

Categories

Five electrical parts land in one table, told apart by a category, instead of scattering across look-alike tables. Anything placed without confidence goes to your catch-all table, tagged with its category.

• Items scanned together agree on a category. Each one sees what the rest of its batch already proposed and reuses it when it fits, so five monitors do not come back under three names.
• Categories come back at section level: a run of kitchen gear lands in "Kitchen", not "Steamer Baskets" or "Mugs". The aim is a handful across a whole workspace.
• A placeholder is left blank. "unknown", "other" or a literal "undefined" leaves the category empty so you get asked, instead of looking answered.

How the category list stays clean

The list starts empty and grows only from values you confirm, and a near-miss snaps onto a value you already use. Within one session the batch agrees on a single category, so "apparel" and "clothing" file together under the broader label. Case and plurals count as the same. Filing one item at a time still uses that item's own category. A category that outgrows the table can be promoted into a table of its own.

Fixing a scan

Wrong name, wrong barcode, a re-run that came back worse, or a catalog photo you'd rather crop from your own shot: Fixing a scan covers all of it. The short version: type a hint and Re-run AI, tap the pencil to fix the code, and Put it back if a second look was worse.

Where a scan result comes from

A barcode works down a chain, and the first tier that answers wins. That is why one install answers a code another misses.

1. The check digit is verified first, so an impossible code is an honest miss, not a confident wrong product.
2. What this install already knows: a code scanned twice costs nothing the second time.
3. A shared resolver on your own network, if the operator runs one. Its answer is final.
4. The barcode network, if the operator joined it: open data plus corrections from other installs. A miss falls through, so joining never costs an answer.
5. Third-party catalogs, each switchable with its own key, all behind a master switch. Off means no barcode ever leaves the box.

A throttled tier is never remembered as a miss, so one busy moment can't poison a product's record, and a later rescan tries properly.

Receipts

A receipt is a whole haul, and it has its own page: the four ways one gets in (the Receipt button, the camera pointed at paper, a forwarded email, a standing inbound address), how the lines are read and checked against the total, what a session looks like in your inbox, and what a confirmed receipt fills in on your records.

A hardware scanner

Plug in a USB or Bluetooth barcode scanner and every Cobblr page picks it up: scan a UPC from anywhere and it lands in the inbox, with a toast that jumps you there. Get a 2D scanner (reads QR codes too, which drives the filing funnel). See Barcode & QR scanners.

Your phone and your desktop

At a desktop, hit Pair phone: the desktop shows a QR, you scan it, and the phone is signed in on the spot, no password typed. Everything it scans lands in the inbox your desktop is showing.

Live scans is for a scanner with no screen of its own, such as a wireless ring or a USB scanner. Open /scan/live on a tablet, a second monitor or a propped-up phone, and the last capture shows there large, with its name, its picture and the table it is headed for, with the few before it underneath. It updates every couple of seconds and catches up after the screen sleeps, saying how many did not fit. Nothing on it is a control, so a screen somebody leans on cannot lose work: filing still happens in the inbox. It shows what somebody captured (barcodes, photos, links, typed notes), not the lines a receipt was read into or rows brought in by an import.

Privacy

Barcode lookups reach third-party catalogs. Self-hosted, you control exactly which, or turn them all off. The optional shared barcode reference is off by default. See Self-hosting -> Privacy.