How to read a barcode using the built-in camera of a tablet or smartphone from a web app built with HTML5 and JavaScript? In this post I am going to introduce two approaches making it possible with pure JavaScript and a modern mobile browser - no extra apps, no prerequisities!

A lot of mobile applications use the camera of a smartphone or tablet to scan barcodes or QR-codes from real-world products, documents, etc. But what about web applications built with HTML and JavaScript? Let's take a look at the possibilities we have with HTML5 and modern mobile browsers!