Scanning smartphone tickets in hospitality
The 3 things I want to focus on here are:
- Companion scanners as a contactless ticketing solution
- How the L-46X is used by events and hospitality providers to read tickets
- The presentation scanner that is optimised for tickets on smartphone screens
Companion scanners as a contactless ticketing solution
The OPN-3002 series offers:
- 2D CMOS Imager
- Bluetooth connectivity
- IP42 with 1.5M drop to concrete
- Box contains USB and neck strap
- HID, SPP & MFI modes (with 3002i)
- 24-month warranty
The crowd bustles and squeezes into the warm foyer after waiting for 15 minutes in the cold and the rain. Quite simply, the bar and foyer are not large enough for them to wait inside while you are following social distancing guidelines. Now your guests are cold and wet and keen to take their seat for the event without hassle or delay. But before they can go anywhere, its vital that their tickets are validated by your team.
That’s the world hospitality providers will be in for the foreseeable future – dealing with the ‘new normal’ that COVID-19 has created. But providing a simple and proven method for reading tickets from smartphone screens is an application Opticon have been quietly supporting for years.
Let’s start with the end user’s requirements. Their team need to be mobile, not pinned to a desk. Any devices they carry must be lightweight and easy to use for an entire shift, and – because of the nature of hospitality staffing – they must be very simple for new starters and contract team members to use.
This is why hospitality end users choose companion scanners over hefty mobility devices and cabled scanners. The device I want to look at here is the OPN-3002 which is a very light weight (just 40g) companion scanner you can hang around your neck or keep in your pocket all day without noticing it. As an aggressive CMOS imager, it quickly reads and decodes both 1D and 2D barcodes, from LCD and smartphone screens, as well as traditional printed tickets (if you remember them!). This allows the user’s ePOS or ticketing application to validate tickets on entry.
And if it looks familiar, if you haven’t seen one at a hospitality event, you will probably have seen the OPN-3002 while it has been used during a train ticketing application – reading the barcode from your phone screen to make sure your train ticket is valid and you are in the correct class. The defining feature of a companion scanner is its mobility factor and light weight, allowing hospitality providers to focus on the main aspect of their role, being a great host.
How the L-46X is used by events and hospitality providers to read tickets
The L-46X offers:
- 2D imager for labels & device screens
- Interchangeable interface cables
- HID and VCP modes
- IP42 and 1.8M drop to concrete
- Box contains stand and USB cable
- 60-month warranty
As with companion scanners, unless your customer is confident that all tickets will be printed and 1D, a 2D imager will be more suitable as they are able to capture barcodes from smartphone screens and also 2D symbologies (like QR codes). One scanner regularly used for this application is the L-46X, which is an aggressive and reliable 2D CMOS imager that comes with stand, USB cable and 60-month warranty as standard.
The L-46X can be used in manual trigger mode, automatic trigger mode or ‘automatic-when-in-stand’ trigger mode, enabling easy configuration for your customer and a behaviour that works for them. The adjustable stand can be set up quickly on reception desks, in venue foyers and on temporary tables during events.
The presentation scanner that is optimised for tickets on smartphone screens
The M-11 presentation scanner offers:
- Omni-directional 2D CMOS Imager
- Rapid scanning performance
- Optimised for smartphone screens
- Interchangeable interface cables
- 60-month warranty
We’ve covered how companion scanners are used by hospitality as a contactless means of validating tickets, and how the L-46X can be set up to match the needs of your hospitality customers. There is another device that I want to cover because application use may be even more useful now that that maintaining a safe distance between guests and staff is critical to keeping a team healthy and a business operating.
The M-11 is a presentation scanner with an aggressive scan engine that has been optimised for reading smartphone screens. With a high motion tolerance and large mirrored housing allowing for a generously wide scan angle, the M-11 is able to quickly capture barcodes from all kinds of devices right away, allowing your customer to get back to their role of being a host.
With a square body and choice of cable outlets at the back of the device, the M-11 can be easily set up on any surface that your customer can get a USB cable to. The key thing here during social distancing is this can be distanced enough from reception to allow guests to quickly pass through a tight space safely, on arriving at a venue.
Please get in contact if you have any queries.