Application area

Warehouse

In a warehouse a scanner is used all shift, with gloves on, at tall racking and sometimes in the cold. A good scanner reads dirty or damaged labels quickly, survives a drop onto concrete and does not force the operator to bend or climb after every parcel.

Scanners for this area Equipment selection

Typical tasks

Goods receiving: scanning pallets and cartons against a delivery note or order
Picking: continuous reading along the route while the hands are busy
Stocktaking and cycle counts by storage location
Reading labels on tall racking from a distance
Cordless work over large areas, without a cable in the way
Scanning with a ring worn on the finger when both hands are handling the load

What to look for

Reading distance. If the label is at hand height, a standard model is enough. For tall racking choose extended-range (ER) or industrial variants, and we confirm the real range on the specific model rather than rely on general figures.

Durability. Choose an IP65 or IP67 protection class and drop resistance onto concrete, per the manufacturer's data for the model in question. For cold rooms, check battery behaviour too.

Cordless. Bluetooth models with a charging cradle save time, but in a large warehouse coverage matters as well. Plan in advance how many base stations and spare batteries you need.

Wearable rings. For fast receiving and picking, ring scanners (for example Zebra RS5100 / RS6100) free the hands, but suit labels that are close by.

A scanner is not a system. A scanner only reads the code. Storage locations, orders and stock are handled by a WMS: see our solution at wms.md.

Lines for the warehouse

Task	Zebra	Honeywell	Datalogic
Receiving at a fixed station	DS2200, DS4600	Voyager 1450g, Xenon 1900	Gryphon GD4400, QuickScan QD
Picking, cordless	DS3678, DS2278	Granit 1991i	Gryphon GBT, PowerScan PM9600
Tall racking, extended range	DS3600 ER	Granit 1990i	PowerScan PD9600
Hands-free stocktaking	RS5100, RS6100	Ring series	—