Our vision is to combine the best that an App can do with a very user-friendly mobile website. That way we get all the benefits without having to support duplicated code base. That sounds good but what does it mean for you?
An App has the advantage to be on your mobile phone’s home screen and thus be very easily accessible. It would allow direct access to all of hobbyDB’s features –
While most features would open in the mobile web view (which we could then concentrate on making the best it could be) the ones where the mobile phone is best would open in the App. For now, that is our new UPC Scanner –
We’d like to add Image Recognition and a personal activity feed –
With the Image Recognition, you could identify that Corkscrew or Pin you just found (or even identify all those loose Action Figure parts you have put aside!) –
The mobile menu become “sticky” (always show) and would feature this new scan button right at the top of the page –
The scan button allows another UPC Scan, start another photo recognition session, or would direct to the Android or iOS store (if the free App was not installed yet).
As some have asked – we decided to plan for all of this versus storing an offline version of users’ Collections or Wish Lists as access to the internet is now almost universal and from the conversations we had with so many of our users we believe this would bring most much more benefits. All that being said we would love to hear your opinions here in the Comments!
Question about UPC barcodes that don’t meet the 8 character minimum or contain letters – how do we account for these? For instance, Hard Rock Stadium Miami shot glass has a barcode that is 3 letters and 4 numbers. Picture attached. We also have UPC codes that come from other countries that are only 7 digits (like pins from Mexico).
Thanks, at the moment we only accept 8 to 16 digits but can review that. It looks like Hard Rock is not using official UPC codes for these but rather some inhouse coding system.
Great news! Image recognition will be a great tool in my treasure searches!
Love the direction to add image recognition! That would help optimize search for Hard Rock pins, in conjunction with our ongoing curator team enhancements to text search and replacement of old photos. I can envision Hard Rock collectors using the app for image recognition while we are trading pins in person, not to mention at home or in retail stores. Also looking forward to an Android version of the app, which I hear is coming soon. Thanks for your work on these promising tools!
there are performance and connectivity reasons why I’d want the ability to sync db to work offline on-demand.
hope android is coming really soon. I love hobbydb overall pricing guidance, but my collection is rapidly growing and I need a way to track it, like, uh, yesterday. if you need beta tester with a brain for android code, happy to take a look vs other options I need to evaluate anyway… 🙂
Are you going to develop a bar scanner for PC as well that would be amazing. I do most of my selling and inventory from my PC so my phone is availible for business calls.
You can already use the scanner. Just go to Database Items search, click on the UPC field and use a connected scanner!
Is there a way to make it specifically ppg?
It is hard to have two Apps that are the same in the App Stores but what we plan to do is a constant filter, so for example you could set to Funko and you would then always see only Funko items (which is the one key difference between PPG and hobbyDB).
Is there a way, like I’m a funko pop collector, when you search something that only funko pops come up, not every action figure or hot wheel by the same name?????
For now, just add the word Funko to your query. Going forward we plan to have you set your context, say Funko, Porsche or Batman and then you only see that.
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