Scanning Barcodes w/ Panasonic FZ-N1

Reading barcodes in Android from the Panasonic FZ-N1 barcode scanner is natively achievable via the dispatchKeyEvent method within an Activity.

When initially pressing down the scanner button, on the side of the device, the event will be triggered twice; once with key code 305, and once with key code 304.

If a barcode is then scanned, whilst the button is held down, the event will be raised again, with key code 0, and the full barcode string available using the getCharacters method of the KeyEvent.

After a successful scan, or release of the button, the same two key codes raised initially, will be sent again in an ACTION_UP event.

Some sample code can be found below, which can be implemeneted directly into an Activity, allowing for scanned barcodes to be handled within the onBarcodeScanned method.

// Required instance variables
private boolean mFirstBarcodeLatch;
private boolean mSecondBarcodeLatch;

private void onBarcodeScanned(String barcode) {
  // Handle the barcode in here.
}

@Override
public boolean dispatchKeyEvent(KeyEvent event) {
    if (event.getAction() == KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
        if (event.getKeyCode() == 305) {
            mFirstBarcodeLatch = true;
        }
        else if (event.getKeyCode() == 304) {
            mSecondBarcodeLatch = true;
        }
    }
    else {
        if (event.getKeyCode() == 305) {
            mFirstBarcodeLatch = false;
        }
        else if (event.getKeyCode() == 304) {
            mSecondBarcodeLatch = false;
        }
    }

    if (event.getKeyCode() == 0 && mFirstBarcodeLatch && mSecondBarcodeLatch) {
        onBarcodeScanned(event.getCharacters());
    }

    return super.dispatchKeyEvent(event);
}