In addition to the 1D product barcodes that you see every day, a different and more complex kind of barcode has become popular in recent years. These barcodes are easy to spot, because they encode data along both their width and height, in a matrix of squares. For example, you may have already seen a barcode in the QR Code or Data Matrix format:

QR Code Data Matrix

You can enable or disable scanning of these formats individually in Settings.

These barcodes can be scanned like product barcodes. They contain more information than a 1D product barcode, and more complex types of information. These formats can encode a link to website, a phone number, contact information, and more.

As a result, on the result screen, the action buttons you will find after scanning such a barcode depend on the type of the barcode's contents.

Hyperlink or URL

Most commonly, the barcode contains a hyperlink to a web site. You can press the URL itself to open a browser to view that web page, or otherwise access the URI's contents. You will also see several action buttons:

Contact Information

If the barcode contains contact information encoded in the MECARD or vCard format, you will see several buttons depending on what pieces of contact information are encoded:

E-mail address

If the contents of the barcode are an e-mail address, or a "mailto:" URI, then you will be able to:

Telephone number

Similarly, if the barcode contains only a telephone number, you can:

SMS

If the barcode encodes an "sms:" or "mms:" URI, then you will see buttons to:

Calendar

Barcodes can also encode information about an event, at a certain time and place. If you scan a barcode containing information in the vCal format, you will be able to:

Geographic location

It is possible to store a location in a barcode, as a "geo:" URI containing latitude and longitude. If one of these is scanned, then the result screen will contain buttons that allow you to:

Wi-fi

Barcodes can encode the details of a wi-fi network, including network name, type and password. Scanning one enables you to connect to a wi-fi network easily:

Text

If the contents of the barcode are not recognized as any of the special types above, it will be treated as simple text. In that case, you can: