"You just need to take a photo of this QR code with your mobile"

Chomeur

Organisations are often presenting me with a QR code and telling me that I simply need to take a photo of it on my phone to achieve whatever is required. So I do that, and, my phone takes a photo, as directed. And that's it. Just a photo. Clearly it's meant to do something more, but how? I have Android on a Poco phone.

Thanks.

MikeJXE

O)n iPhone when you point camera at QR code a link appears so tap that and it takes you where you need to go.

Otherwise its a QR code to coolest or send something 

flaneurs_lobster

Does this work ?

Xiaomi, Redmi, POCO (MIUI)

In case you are a Xiaomi, Redmi, or Poco phone user, follow these steps:

1. Launch the camera app on your phone running MIUI, and tap the more options.

2. From the expanded menu, tap on Settings

3. Under Camera settings, go to Smart Suggestion, and ensure the toggle for Scan QR codes is enabled.

Chickereeeee

Or (if you can download apps) download a QR  code reader app, and use that to scan.

mgfvvc

You don't need to download a QR reader app on Android, you can use Google lens.

Username03725

On my Android phone pointing the phone in camera mode at a QR code for a few seconds allows it to recognise the QR code for what it is - a URL that’s not in a human-readable font - and then offer a prompt to open that URL in the browser. I’ve never noticed one that asked the user to take a photo - perhaps you’re seeing the word camera and making the leap to 'take a photo'.

spenderdave

Despite what many assume, not all phones decode QR codes by default. My Nokia C21+ doesn't, I had to download a separate app to do it, there are many available.

facade

I couldn't make it work on my motorola, or my lenovo tablet.

I ended up paying £2.99 for QR & Barcode Scanner Pro, which is excellent.

I tried a couple of "free" apps, and the adverts were massively intrusive & annoying.

JohnB47

I have a Moto G7 and with the inbuilt camera app loaded, I simply hover the phone over the QR code and (without actually taking a photo) a link (URL) appears in yellow near the bottom of the screen. Tapping on that takes me to a website relevant to the QR Code. This works without my having to download a separate app. - the phone is supplied with this capability built in.

Perhaps you are seeing the same behaviour but don't recognise it, so you then take a photo (which isn't necessary and doesn't do anything).

facade

JohnB47 said:

I have a Moto G7 and with the inbuilt camera app loaded, I simply hover the phone over the QR code and (without actually taking a photo) a link (URL) appears in yellow near the bottom of the screen. Tapping on that takes me to a website relevant to the QR Code. This works without my having to download a separate app. - the phone is supplied with this capability built in.

Perhaps you are seeing the same behaviour but don't recognise it, so you then take a photo (which isn't necessary and doesn't do anything).

Hey, you are right, I tried it on my motorola, and sometimes it does work exactly as you say, a yellow pop-up appears!

The reason I bought the app (which has loads of features and reads pretty much anything) is because the one QR that I positively absolutely desperately had to read didn't work, and it was the first one I tried too....

£2.99 is hardly the end of the world though.

victor2

Google Lens does the job on my android phone. It's free and does other things as well, but I just use it for QR codes