

Why QR Codes Are Perfect For The Internet of Things - edent
http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/01/why-qr-codes-are-perfect-for-the-internet-of-things/

======
roc
If you get to the point that _things_ are scanning each other silently and
automatically, QR codes are a fine solution.

It would be much easier for a hypothetical 'smart' refrigerator to read a QR
code on an item being placed inside than trying to get a clean barcode read
from arbitrary angles or visually recognizing every possible object.

Similarly, a Google Glasses sort of tech would have a far easier time offering
context-aware services if it could passively identify objects by a QR code.
No-one would actively scan a poster QR code to order tickets to a movie. But
if you were looking at a movie poster with a QR code, you could say "remind me
to buy tickets to that" and the glasses would have a much easier time than if
they had to visually recognize the particular poster and parse out whether it
was for a film or tv show or stage production and figure out _where_ to order
said tickets, etc.

So... as a shortcut to effective computer vision and understanding that human
beings will not ever actively scan them, sure. Why not?

~~~
gz5
+1 can't overstate removing inertia of work from the equation.

for similar reasons, RFID or similar should also carve nice niche over time as
Internet becomes ubiquitous and costs decrease?

------
j_s
According to the senior editor of _The Atlantic_ back in January 2012, 'QR
Codes Are the Roller-Skating Horses of Advertising'

[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/qr-
cod...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/qr-codes-are-
the-roller-skating-horses-of-advertising/252128/)

    
    
      > QR codes are an intermediate technology at best, a novelty at worst.

~~~
edent
Well, I'm not talking about using it for advertising per se. I'm looking at
what happens when every item you own has a machine readable tag. Hence
"Internet of Things" .

And, most intermediate technologies tend to stick around for a long time. Look
at AM radio - supplanted by FM, DAB, satellite - and still going strong.

~~~
yardie
AM has a couple of things working in its favour. Power requirements and
incredible range with those power requirements. It's no coincidence that
sports, religion, and talk shows are popular on that band.

QR codes could be useful but between URL shorteners, geofencing, and RFID tags
they are yet 1 entry in a crowded arena. I'm not exactly sure why it didn't
take off but I assume a certain fruit company didn't think of it so didn't
care to include it.

------
marknutter
<http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/>

~~~
angry-hacker
This gets posted in every topic about qr codes but no one can deny they are
popular in Japan.

------
nicpottier
_"Now, I'll be the first to admit that a website about salt is not the most
riveting thing in the world. But that's exactly the point! The costs
associated with setting this up are close to zero."_

Just because we can doesn't mean we should. Why put a QR code on the salt
packet if it serves no purpose. What is the cost associated in the number of
people who wasted their time scanning that code?

I totally agree QR codes are great in that they are cheap to deploy, but I've
seen very few uses in the real world for consumers that are actually useful.
Only one I can really think of using myself and which was useful is the Google
Authenticator app and the BlockChain.info equiv.

~~~
nwh
Based on the salt comment, I went through my cupboard and scanned several
products. Here's the results:

• The Red Bull can leads to a full page advertisement for Red Bull Mobile,
which is more than useless.

• A generic oak lettuce leads to a recipe page containing, you guessed it,
salad suggestions.

• A cleaning spray lead to the companies Facebook page, with a very large
image asking me to like their page.

• A bottle of reasonably pricy champagne lead to a page full of gleaming
reviews, and a copy of the information that was on the label anyway.

• A well known bleach product (scanned weeks back) also contained a link to
their Facebook page.

It's hardly enough of a reason for me to scan these in the future.

~~~
sageikosa
I was just peeling a banana this morning that had a QR code on its sticker. I
suspected it would be a page about bananas, but unless it told me this banana
I was about to eat had been recalled, I really couldn't care less.

------
corin_

      > Compatible with every phone with a camera.
      > No need to build or use a dedicated app.
    

Surely this is incorrect, except for phones with built in QR code readers -
which certainly isn't every phone with a camera.

~~~
kennu
Notably both Android and iPhone require you to install a third-party app in
order to scan QR codes. I think if (when) this changes, QR codes will really
become frictionless, since you no longer need to instruct the end-user how to
first install a scanner app with a help label next to the QR code.

Eventually people will "just know" what to do with QR codes, just like they
already know what to do with <http://> or www. prefixed strings.

~~~
jasonquinn
Google Goggles scans QR codes and it came installed on my Android phone.

------
the_gipsy
In your example, you forgot the cost of having less surface for the logo and
general product advertisement, and ugliness.

------
tartuffe78
The only time I ever used a QR code was at AnDevCon, when a speaker gave a
prize to whoever could scan the QR codes on his slides the fastest. It felt
gimmicky and silly.

I've seen them on movie posters, bags of coffee, and at work, but I've never
felt compelled to use them. Has anyone seen a great implementation of QR
codes?

The big problem for me is, if I want to find out about a movie, product, etc.
I want an objective opinion, not a sales pitch. I know whatever is on the end
of the QR code probably won't help me, but Googling for movie reviews, product
reviews, etc. will.

~~~
edent
You are not a representative sample. If you look at the statistics for QR
codes, you'll see that they are fairly widely used.

I agree that going to a product's QR code for an objective review is silly.
But to see, say, a movie trailer or get an instruction manual for a bit of
furniture, I think they're very useful.

~~~
sequence7
> You are not a representative sample. If you look at the statistics for QR
> codes, you'll see that they are fairly widely used.

I would be fascinated to see those statistics, please share them.

~~~
edent
Certainly! Here are stats from the London's bus timetable QR
<http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/01/real-qr-statistics-from-tfl/>
[http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/04/tfl-qr-
followup-5000-scans-p...](http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/04/tfl-qr-
followup-5000-scans-per-month/)

Here are stats from Tesco (large UK retailer)
[http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/10/no-one-scans-qr-codes-
apart-...](http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/10/no-one-scans-qr-codes-apart-from-
the-thousands-of-people-who-do/)

Finally, some QR stats from the back of a train ticket.
[http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/12/no-one-scans-qr-codes-
apart-...](http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/12/no-one-scans-qr-codes-apart-from-
these-25-thousand-people/)

So, in the UK at least, well designed QR codes get a significant response from
"normal" people.

~~~
zeidrich
Bus time tables, giveaways and product advertisement are normal things that
people are interested in. A train ticket with a QR code is going to be sitting
in someone's hand on the train while they've got their phone in the other
hand. If they are curious about getting a 2012 games ticket, or if they're
just bored they might play with this QR reader thing.

A salt package however... Maybe you're in a restaurant, do you pull out your
phone? Do you hide away the salt package just so you can read the QR code
later? This isn't even described, so why do you want to read it?

We already have a ubiquitous machine-readable way of identifying things,
barcodes. Just because you own a barcode scanner doesn't mean you go around
scanning the multitude of barcodes on your stuff. In fact, we get kind of
blind to the number of barcodes on everything because they are used on
everything and given without context.

If QR codes are overused on everything, maybe leading to things as mundane as
an infosheet on salt (oh, this is high in sodium, who knew?), or forgotten
broken links, they're just going to be ignored except when given appropriate
context.

Are "normal" people really interested in getting detailed information
documenting the unique ID of the salt package they purchased?

------
joezydeco
_"Tiny sachets of salt an pepper. Created in their millions. Given away for
free the world over. Each stamped with a unique ID which can be recognised
easily by a computer."_

Um, do we _really_ need every salt packet to have a unique ID?

If we really do, then the cost is NOT trivial. What machinery are you going to
have in place to assign and track IDs? What server is going to hold all those
IDs and respond to queries about when/where/what the salt packet is? What
high-speed ink printers do you have in place on the assembly line to print
these codes?

~~~
edent
Well, it's unique to that brand of salt packets, or SKU.

Still, it's not like we'll run out of IPv6 addresses, is it :-)

~~~
joezydeco
Well, to play devil's advocate against myself, food products are an area where
you _want_ unique IDs on things.

You want to be able to scan that head of spinach and have the reply be
"PRODUCT RECALL: E.COLI CONTAMINATED".

But I don't think QR codes are really the answer here. I want it to be
wireless so when I walk up to the fridge my smartphone starts going off with
warnings.

------
nirvanatikku
While I appreciate your points, personally, I'm wary. I've seen stickers
overlaid on top of printed codes, and/or social hacks to dupe people into
downloading malware.

I went to the media lab not too long ago and got to see VR codes.
Imperceptible patterns ftw. This doesn't necessarily relate to your points
about the opportunity cost of placing QR codes on packaging (after all, VR
codes are designed for digital displays), but I think QR codes are sort of a
stepping stone.

~~~
edent
The QR malware is an area I've addressed [0] - there are some hacks out there,
to be sure.

I love the idea of imperceptible patterns but then you have the problem of how
you let the user know that there's a pattern there to scan! It's the same
issue with NFC - you need a symbol that a user will recognise to mean "Scan
me"

[0] <http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2011/12/how-to-prevent-qr-hijacking/>

~~~
nirvanatikku
Fair point on imperceptible patterns (until we have something like google
glass :b).

On the matter of addressing QR malware, you must appreciate that in order for
the technology to be safe and widely adopted, the _masses_ must be educated on
all the points you bring up. Every time I realize how such information needs
to be understood by the lay person, I'm led to believe that QR codes won't
become 'the internet of things'. My 2c.

------
michaelfeathers
The salt packet is cute, but I don't think QR codes can go small enough to
dominate this area for long.

There are inherent limitations: <http://www.qrstuff.com/blog/2011/11/23/qr-
code-minimum-size>

~~~
Father
Besides the regular Qrcode there's also Mirco Qrcode[1]. Also the Reed–Solomon
error correction in qrcodes take up a lot of datablocks. If a new
standardisation for mirco qrcodes would allow for a version without error
correction you could store even more.

[1]<http://www.qrcode.com/en/microqr.html>

~~~
michaelfeathers
Thank you, father.

------
Kilimanjaro
2001:0db8:85a3:0042:1000:8a2e:0370:7334

That's the internet of things.

    
    
      |2001:0db8|
      |85a3:0042|
      |1000:8a2e|
      |0370:7334|
    

Or that, if you like squares.

~~~
nwh
That's a beautiful way of formatting IPv6 addresses.

------
jpablo
The only good use of QR codes I have ever seen is in the Nintendo 3DS game
Pushmo. It allows you to create levels in the game and share them publishing a
image with a QR code in them.

------
astrodust
Robot barf on everything? Please, stop.

------
Buzaga
I never scanned a QR code in my life, albeit I gotta admit I've already
searched on libraries to create them(talk about totally not scratching my own
itch!)

the best use case I've ever thought for QR Codes is vandalism.

~~~
ctdonath
_the best use case I've ever thought for QR Codes is vandalism._

<https://www.google.com/search?q=qr+code+graffiti>

------
Kilimanjaro
URLs killed QR codes. Get over it.

Easier to read, easier to share, easier to remember.

~~~
kalleboo
Harder to enter on a touchscreen. There's no reason they can't coexist...

~~~
Kilimanjaro
Tell me how you enter a QR code on a touch screen. At least the url you can
enter, QR code fails, as your argument 'entering them on a touch screen is
harder'.

That problem is pertinent to both, so QR codes are still worse than urls.

Your argument is invalid.

Now, if you mean reading the QR code or URL on any device, let me tell you
that QR codes are dots, if you misread a dot you fuck up the meaning. So OCR
engines can EASILY read a URL and the same rule applies, if they miss a dot,
they may confuse an I for an L or a 1, but still easier than a QR code,
because 26 letters an 10 numbers are easier to configure in an OCR engine than
irregular dots on a square.

URLs win.

I rest my case, your honor.

~~~
kalleboo
s/touchscreen/touchscreen device/. Even iPods have cameras now.

OCR has been failing us really badly for 40 years now, and not for a lack of
trying. In fact, OCR is so bad that the one way we use to distinguish humans
from machine is by forcing them to do OCR.

QR codes were designed with targeting/aligning areas as well as tons of
redundancy built in, there's a reason why they can be easily scanned in
realtime from a video feed at an odd skewed angle in the dark, whereas OCR
doesn't even work properly on books scanned on a flat scanner.

OCR has always sucked and will always suck. Sorry.

