from Hacker News

PiScan: An Open-Source Version of the Amazon Dash Button Using a Raspberry Pi

by dpapathanasiou on 5/31/15, 4:11 PM with 14 comments

  • by IshKebab on 5/31/15, 4:44 PM

    A Pi is ridiculously overkill for something like this. There are much more suitable modules. If you're willing to have a bluetooth gateway device you could do it pretty damn easily with an nRF51822 module.

  • by kaffee on 5/31/15, 4:32 PM

    This is great. It would be better if it were battery powered and smaller, like the dash.

    This option, using the ESP8266 instead of the Raspberry Pi, looks promising: http://hackaday.com/2015/05/13/an-amazon-dash-like-button-fo...

  • by detaro on 5/31/15, 5:13 PM

    A version with a camera would be nice, if it could recognize the packaging and you didn't have to aim at the barcode. A cheap android phone might be a good platform for this (camera, CPU, WLAN, battery all already integrated)

  • by _b8r0 on 5/31/15, 8:53 PM

    I thought about doing something like this myself a while back. I use Ocado[1], who have their own scan and shop app. I could possibly put this onto an older iPhone with a battery pack and some sticky velcro and run it from that.

    I like what the author has done though, and it's good that the server was open sourced.

    [1] - http://www.ocadogroup.com/news-and-media/news-centre/2014/20...

  • by bootload on 6/1/15, 9:42 AM

    This is an excellent project, nothing complex with the exception of the everyday "USB Laser Scan Barcode Scanner". As for using the Raspberrypi, @IshKebab sure it's overkill. The Pi is a great general way to quickly prototype, lots of different things quickly.

    "The Open Product Data (POD) project is a promising start, but its catalog is limited, and they haven’t published an update since early 2014."

    Following through the POD project, how many other types of data that need to be opened-up?

  • by deutronium on 5/31/15, 6:04 PM

    Unfortunately the Pi, will draw a hell of a lot of current which would make running on batteries difficult, the esp8266 (an MCU with Wifi support) apparently draws at peak 300mA @ 3.3V.

    I've just been playing about with nodemcu (which is eLua ported to the esp8266) on them, whilst also seeing how long it will run for on 2x 18650 3400mAh batteries.

  • by donalhunt on 6/1/15, 12:36 PM

    There is another group looking to open up food data here: http://openfoodfacts.org/

  • by a-b on 5/31/15, 7:53 PM

  • by pamelasanvi on 6/3/15, 1:45 PM

    It's a neat and useful product. Yes , it would be great if it was battery powered small handheld device or if it could connect to a smart phone.