No hardware lock-in
Runs on any device with a browser. No £900 hand scanners required.
StockSphere is a browser-based platform. The same login works on a warehouse tablet, an office desktop, a manager's laptop or a company-issued phone — with the same data, the same screens, and the same scanner built in.
That means you can kit out a 5-person warehouse for under £500 in hardware instead of £4,500 — and refresh devices on the consumer cycle, not the industrial one.
Phones
Android & iOS
Tablets
Any browser
Laptops
Any OS
Hardware cost
Five-person warehouse: the maths
Real prices for a typical small-to-mid warehouse rollout. The hardware decision pays for the software many times over.
Legacy WMS — dedicated scanners
- 5× Zebra TC22 hand scanners£4,500
- MDM licences (annual)£900/yr
- Replacement battery sleds£300
- Charging cradles£500
- Year 1 total£6,200
Plus a 3–5 year refresh cycle, vendor-locked spare parts, and a separate IT ticket every time a device needs reimaging.
StockSphere — any browser device
- 5× refurb mid-range Android phones£600
- Rugged silicone cases£75
- USB-C multi-port chargers£60
- MDMOptional
- Year 1 total£735
Saving: £5,465 in year one — every year on refresh, more.
Prices are illustrative based on UK retail at time of writing. We always recommend company-issued devices with a basic mobile-device-management policy — never personal phones — so data, app access and offboarding stay in your control.
The technical case
A modern phone is a better scanner than a scanner
Industrial hand scanners are built on a 5–7 year hardware refresh cycle. Phones are refreshed every year. The gap shows.
Wi-Fi 6 / 6E as standard
Most industrial scanners still ship with Wi-Fi 5 (or worse, Wi-Fi 4). Modern phones have faster, more reliable connections in the same warehouse.
4G / 5G fallback
When the warehouse Wi-Fi blips, a phone hops onto cellular automatically — and we can supply pooled-data SIMs so it doesn't cost you a fortune. A dedicated scanner just stops scanning.
Native barcode decoder
Modern Android Chrome uses the BarcodeDetector API — genuinely fast, decodes QR, Code 128, Code 39, EAN, UPC, Data Matrix and more from the camera.
Torch + autofocus + zoom
Built-in torch for low light, continuous autofocus for close-up labels, pinch-zoom for tiny barcodes. Most hand scanners have one fixed focus distance.
Zero training
Your staff already use a phone. Onboarding a seasonal picker takes minutes, not a half-day session with the scanner manual.
Consumer refresh cycle
When a phone breaks, replace it with whatever's on sale. No three-month vendor lead time, no spare-parts SKU lookup.
Managed add-on
StockSphere Connect4G & 5G SIMs with pooled data — never go offline
StockSphere Connect is our managed connectivity service. We supply, ship and manage company-issued 4G/5G data SIMs to slot into the devices running StockSphere — with data pooled across every device and every site on a single monthly allowance. When the warehouse Wi-Fi drops, scanning carries on. When one site has a quiet week, that data is freed up for the busier site down the road.
For multi-site operators it's genuine resilience: you'd have to be very unlucky to lose Wi-Fi and cellular at multiple sites at the same moment. For single-site warehouses it's cheap insurance against a router reboot bringing pick-and-pack to a halt.
- One pooled allowance across all sites & devices
- Multi-network roaming — auto-switches to whichever signal is strongest
- No per-SIM bill shock — overage is shared, not per-line
- Pause, swap or cancel SIMs as your headcount changes
- One bill, one support contact — included on your StockSphere invoice
From £8 per SIM / month including a pooled data allowance. Final pricing depends on SIM count, pool size and contract length — we'll send a tailored quote within one working day.
Pooled data
One allowance, every SIM. Quiet sites subsidise busy ones automatically.
Multi-network
Each SIM picks the strongest of the major UK networks at every location.
Always-on scanning
Wi-Fi outage at one site? Devices fail over to cellular without skipping a scan.
One monthly bill
Bundled with your StockSphere subscription — no separate telco contract.
Operating overseas? Ask about eSIM
UK pooled SIMs at launch. For newer phones and tablets that support eSIM, we can also arrange international data plans across 100+ countries for sites or field staff outside the UK.
In practice
The right device for the job — same login, same data
Company phone
Pickers & packers
Scan to book in, pick by location, photo-evidence packing.
Warehouse tablet
Goods-in & receiving
Upload delivery notes, bulk book-in, putaway with floorplans.
Laptop
Warehouse manager
Live ops dashboard, exception triage, shipment approval.
Desktop
Office & finance
Customer billing usage, aging reports, exports, user admin.
Already own scanners?
Keep them. They work too.
Plug-in USB and Bluetooth barcode scanners emulate a keyboard — they type the scanned value into whatever input is focused, then hit Enter. StockSphere reads them natively, no driver, no setup.
USB & Bluetooth scanners
Works out of the box with any HID-mode scanner.
Existing hand-held units
Zebra, Honeywell, Datalogic — if it has a browser, it runs StockSphere.
Vendor lock-in
No proprietary firmware, no scanner SDK, no annual licence per device.
App stores & installers
Browser-based — no app to deploy, no IT ticket, no version drift.