Bluetooth Scanner - AppSheet restarts/resyncs when scanner goes to sleep

[Daisy_Ramirez]

Just wanted to see if anyone has had this experience:

Here is the behavior that is strange. While we are in the app and have done some scans, the Bluetooth barcode scanner can go to sleep; pulling the trigger wakes it back up and reconnects the Bluetooth. During this period, with no intervention on the tablet, the App will restart and resynch (but not transmit data) and the go back to where it was when the scanner was reactivated.

Is this expected behavior…the App restarting when the Bluetooth scanner is reconnected during the operation? It seems no matter where the app is, ready for a scan or at any point in the app or even the ADD screen where there is no input, the app will restart and come back to where it was before the restart.

The concern is the time between Scanner and App restart and the, albeit few seconds, time it takes to complete the restart.

On another note: Can anyone recommend a dependable bluetooth scanner? Thanks so much!

[Matt_H]

Daisy, I have three of these and they fit in a shirt pocket with a little hand lanyard.

[Daisy_Ramirez]

Hey Matt! Thanks for the recommendation. Can we turn off the timeout on these scanners?

[Matt_H]

Yes, It has 1, 5, 10, 30, Never and Immediate.

[Daisy_Ramirez]

Nice! Ok will pass it along - thanks bunches!

[Matt_H]

I need to add to Daisy’s post. Our bluetooth scanners timeout after a certain time and when the bluetooth loses and regains connection it causes appsheet to reload. After gaining the third reconnect we lose all Form View Data and Appsheet goes back to Table View. A workaround is to have the barcode scanner not timeout after 1 minute but not all barcode scanners have that functionality.

Help.

Mobile Device is Moto G Power with latest Android update
Device is the one you see in the post above but the action happens with one other Inatek device we have.
Account is on Pro Plan

[Fabian_Weller]

@Matt_H Why are you using a Barcode Scanner with a Moto G Power which has a camera on board?

[Matt_H]

Fabian, good question. The camera barcode scanner is near universally disliked by our warehouse personnel if they have to scan more than 10 barcodes. They stop using the app. Different lighting, quality of the camera are factors. They have to contort their fingers to cover up other barcodes or they carry around a template to cover all the other barcodes on the label. The little bluetooth scanner speeds up the 100-200 scans by a factor of 10x.

[Fabian_Weller]

Adding @Gil - sounds like a usecase for the new Scanner Update

[Gil]

Hi @Daisy_Ramirez @Matt_H,
I don’t think we’re intently doing anything that should cause the app to reload when the scanner reconnects.
I wonder if the scanner transmit something that causes a page reload. Could you please try opening any website, scan a barcode, and then let the scanner sleep and see if the page refreshs when it wakes up?

Also, in the coming update to the Android app we added focused scan mode for users who have multiple barcode clustered together. So no more using templates to cover unwanted barcodes @Matt_H.
This will be coming to Android very soon and to iOS at a later time.