New scanner allows nationwide retailers to do inventory self-scanning wirelessly

GainSpan Corporation announced today that its ultra-low power embedded Wi-Fi modules are being used by Datascan, the nation's largest self-scanning company, for its recently released Wi-Fi Barcode Scanner. Datascan's new Wi-Fi Barcode Scanner allows retailers to conduct inventory self-scanning and to communicate the details over Wi-Fi within seconds to a central database. Since inventory data is transmitted in real time, the new Wi-Fi scanner eliminates the need for employees to upload in bulk the stored data from the scanner and thus dramatically decreases inventory count times.
"Datascan has over 80,000 handheld scanners being used worldwide by retail companies doing self-inventory of their store stock. For our newest wireless scanners, we needed a connectivity solution that would work with wireless networks already installed at retailers, many of which were Wi-Fi, handle commercial grade encryption and, because they are battery-operated devices, consume as little power as possible" said Carter Graves, vice president of operations, Datascan. "After testing wireless solutions from a number of companies we decided that GainSpan Wi-Fi technology outperformed all the others."
"GainSpan's GS1011M Wi-Fi module met all our needs and then some," said Graves. "It was very low power, provided a wide variety of different encryption methods and offered one of the best price/performance ratios on the market."
The GS1011M Wi-Fi module offers easy system integration and minimal use of host resources. The module provides both UART and SPI interfaces, making it possible to connect to any 8-32 bit microcontroller using simple AT commands. The firmware provided to run on the module includes complete Wi-Fi functionality including security, the networking stack and advanced networking features and services not readily available with other Wi-Fi modules including enterprise security, embedded servers (HTTP, DHCP and DNS servers), service and device discovery (mDNS and DNS/SD), XML parsing, and over the air firmware upgrades, as well as WPS and other provisioning features.