Scanner Bin - The Clever Document Scanning Solution

Most people probably look at this product and ask "why would I pay this price for a cardboard box." But a lot of design went into this product to make it work well for scanning documents quickly and easily. I have an all in one printer scanner that has both a flat bed and a sheet fed scanner, so if I need to scan many 8.5x11 pages, that device makes more sense. But to be honest, it's a pain to scan a single page, off-size documents like a check. I have to put it in the scanner, scan it, crop it, etc. With this box I can scan from my phone in a matter of seconds, and it lines up immediately, sees the contrasting outline because of the color of the box, crops automatically, no shadows because of the box and I'm done. It works must faster than hand-held scanning. I used the free Microsoft Office Lens app on my phone and it worked without a hitch. Also makes a great box for pilling up things that will need to be scanned. The shape of the box was carefully worked out - making one yourself out of a random cardboard box would take a lot of time and experimentation. This was a worthwhile purchase. I asked the seller a question, and he responded very quickly and generously. I'm very glad I bought it and recommend it highly.

I bought this product as a lightweight, inexpensive scanning tool for my grandma who has very limited sight. She has struggled in the past with bulkier plastic scanning tools that were more expensive and less effective than the Scanner Bin. I set the bin up for her and she was immediately able to scan documents for her apps to read back to her. Since she is easily able to scan documents without fiddling with the bin for too long and is able to store away for when guests come over, the Scanner Bin is a great product that has all the capability of a more dedicated scanning stand for a fraction of the price. My only issue with the product is that it is a little hard to set up if you have trouble seeing, but there is no way around this issue because if the product shipped assembled it would run the risk of getting damaged in shipping. Otherwise, the Scanner Bin is a cheap, easy to set up tool that gets the job done.

What would you expect for a very inexpensive item made of corrugated cardboard? But it solves a real problem if you want to use the high quality camera in your phone to take consistent scans of documents very affordable. The add-on kit with an LED light strip helps a lot with shadows and adds some simple cardboard stabilizers. This is a good solution if you want to scan dozens of items but appears to be too fragile to scan many hundreds and it is hard to use without bumping the box. Scanning apps highly recommended by the seller. I chose CamScanner.

I feel completely ripped off by this cheaply made product. The idea behind it is great, but the execution is terrible. The materials feel flimsy and low quality, definitely not worth the price. It doesn’t hold its shape well, and the overall construction is nowhere near sturdy enough for reliable scanning. On top of that, the setup is frustrating, and it doesn’t improve scan quality enough to justify the cost. Honestly, a stack of books and good lighting would do a better job. If you’re considering this, save your money and find a better solution. Not recommended.

Interesting concept but you can make your own out of a cardboard box. Item packaged in a simple plastic envelope (i.e., non-cushioned), so arrived bent on a couple of panels. Also, bumpers are attached directly to cardboard surface on the inside of the product and are definitely not easy to remove without potentially damaging them. The product does work as advertised but you can save the money by constructing your own.

I am ecstatic with how this simple way of scanning pictures & documents works! I transfer my pictures to my I-Phone and the phone does all the work of aligning for me. I just have to use my forefinger and thumb to stretch the picture to the right size by placing my fingers on my phone. The phone does all the work. It takes less than a second. I then have the picture captured in my phone, send it to my email. From my email, I transfer the picture to one of my picture files in my computer. It is so quick & easy. For a document, I place the document in the box, adjust it as described for pictures and am able to save it to my documents in my computer. The documents & pictures stay saved in my photos of my I-Phone until I delete them. I've been using this mainly for my genealogy. The price is extremely low and worth every penny I spent on it. The diameter of the box is 9-1.2" by 11-1/2". The picture of it & it's description are pretty clear.

In a world of high tech gadgets, this takes the cake - using a genius card board box! I wanted a scanner to do a cookbook project & didn't want something big & bulky or expensive b/c I already have a printer in another room but didn't want to STAND at it for days while it labored reading line after line, page by page. Thankfully I found this invention! I downloaded the Adobe Scan app (use your favorite scan app) on my phone and set it to automatically capture each page once I hit the continue button. As fast as I can put a new sheet in the box or turn a page and hit continue, it uses my phone to snap a picture! No waiting for a copier to scan a page! BRILLIANT! When I'm finished, I tell it to save a PDF [this is what a scan app will do for you vs just taking a photo and capturing a jpg (photo) which will use up all your printer ink if you later need to print the document.] My documents are crystal clear and always have the correct lighting without glare if you have to flatten a piece of paper using the handy "transparent paper weight" provided. It comes with 2 bumpers to help you always use the best document positioning inside the box based on your phone. However, based on my iPhone, I found that I can simply shove all my documents into the corner of the box so I used the bumpers to mark where I should put my phone instead. When you get the instructions, you'll also learn that the inventor is passionate about additional uses of this product for helping those with disabilities so I hope folks will find this and share it to promote it. My folks have a scanner that no one knows how to use so they always need help for healthcare documents, etc. but even they can use THIS!! Hats off to the inventor!! I hope you make millions!! -Stacy

I've been using the Scanner Pro iPhone app for OCR document scanning, and it's been working well. I thought that this unit might make things that much better. For me, it doesn't. First, you have to arrange yourself so that light enters the box without casting a shadow on your document. I did that. The pale color of the box does not provide any contrast with my normal documents, so the area scanned varies greatly from document to document. I tried putting a black background on the "bottom" of the unit (where the documents sit), but for some reason, the results were still hit-and-miss. For batch processing, you have to position yourself so that you have one hand available to peel off the top document of the stack without disturbing the rest of the pile. This is not as easy as it seems. You also have to operate the scan manually, which is not a huge thing, but it means you have to keep one hand on your phone to touch the button. Once you have imaged the batch, you have to go through and rotate at least some of the documents because when the phone is in the horizontal position, the orientation can go either way. Even with this, it's still faster than flatbed scanning, but the final file is often not as pretty. I downloaded and tried the OCR app recommended by Scanner Bin, and it was actually worse, both in terms of workflow and results. My hat is off to anyone who can make that combination work. So, I'm back to working in a well-lit place, with my documents on top of a wooden cutting board for edge contrast. I leave Scanner Pro set on automatic and reposition the phone for each page. It's not so bad, and ... most importantly ... the results are useable.

- I liked the ease and accuracy of taking a picture of a document. - I didn’t like the fact that it is not foldable, hence not portable. - I wish it had an internal light source even at extra cost. - the quality of the cardboard could be improved and be more durable.

Good idea. However it arrived in a plastic bag which was damaged and the product was damaged as a result. the other comment is that the hole cut for camera is large and phone doesn’t cover it as a whole. The idea of outside light not putting shadows on the document is great however the opening of the box is still letting the shadows to form.

I bought this for the purpose of scanning a large number of archive documents - it's too tedious to do with a flatbed and even an MFC feeder scanner due to paper variety and double-sided pages. Scanner Bin works amazing in conjunction with Adobe Scan which makes it super easy to create multi-page PDFs with OCR and upload them to Document Cloud (free up to 2GB afaik). The only concern is ambient lighting - you must use phone camera flash but even with it, strong overhead lights will create uneven page lighting. The vendor is selling led add-on side lid that should make this better, but I honestly found the bin to be good enough even without it.

Still need to get light right

This is so simple-and it works! I had my doubts at 1st,but it really works-for documents and photos. i was amazed. You dont need the LED lights,you can use the light from a lamp-we did,lol.When ur done,fold it up,keep it flat and put it away-so dam simple to use,lol.