Google’s making more convenient to scan QR codes from distant

Scanning a QR code can be quite annoying. Android has tried to make it convenient through built in camera, but the requirement is to zoom in as codes are quite small to scan in at a distant speed. However, Google is working on some scanning updates to make it more convenient.

Mishaal Rahman recently drew attention to Google’s intriguing enhancements to Android’s barcode scanning capabilities in a series of tweets. According to reports, the company has included an auto-zoom capability into ML Kit’s Barcode Scanning API and its own Code Scanner API. This modification eliminates the need to manually zoom in to capture faraway QR codes.

Rahman also distinguished the Google Code Scanner API from the ML Kit Barcode Scanning API. Applications may scan barcodes using the Google Code Scanner API without requiring a proprietary UI or camera interface. The ML Kit Barcode Scanning API, on the other hand, is intended for more complex use cases that necessitate specialised user interfaces.

It is offered in both bundled and unbundled versions to accommodate different integration preferences. In either scenario, before users can access these functionalities, developers must integrate the API into their apps.

This means that third-party apps that use either API will soon be able to automatically zoom into faraway QR codes. Furthermore, because the built-in QR scanner on Android 13 and higher uses the ML Kit Barcode Scanning API, this feature might be extended to QR scanning in the camera app.

Rahman posted a video on Twitter demonstrating how it can be used on a standard Android camera. According to the video, the camera detects a QR code in the distance and automatically zooms in to correspond with it. Although it will be a minor change but it’ll be of convenience.