{"id":44054,"date":"2024-07-11T18:22:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T22:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=44054"},"modified":"2024-07-15T10:38:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T14:38:21","slug":"ricoh-scansnap-ix1600","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/11\/ricoh-scansnap-ix1600\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricoh ScanSnap iX1600"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ricoh<\/a> (Amazon<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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The newest flagship in the ScanSnap family is 33% faster, giving you more time back in your day. Designed for everyday use, the ScanSnap iX1600 gets documents digitized, organized and sent anywhere—anytime—with minimal effort.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

The Fujitsu ScanSnap S500M was the only<\/em> document scanner that ever worked well for me. I’d been using it for almost 18 years (lately via my 2012 MacBook Pro<\/a> to run the old software), making it probably the longest serving equipment in my office aside from the desk chair.<\/p>\n\n

Unfortunately, it finally died, with the rollers<\/a> melting<\/a>, so that they stick to the paper and no longer turn. There’s some possibility of taking it apart and installing aftermarket rollers<\/a>, but with unscanned papers stacking up I opted to get a new ScanSnap iX1600.<\/p>\n\n

I’m glad to say that it essentially works the same way as before, just a bit better. The new ScanSnap Home software is ugly and awkward, but you can use it without the cloud features and even lock it down with Little Snitch. As before, you can pretty much ignore the software once it’s configure because you can initiate scans by pressing a button on the scanner itself. It now has a touch-screen so you can switch between different profiles (e.g. receipt, black-and-white document, photo) without even touching the Mac.<\/p>\n\n

It works via Wi-Fi, so I can scan to the Mac and update the firmware without ever connecting a USB cable—which would be inconvenient as it’s on the other side of the room from the Mac. I suppose this means that I can’t control which servers it’s talking to, though…<\/p>\n\n

Scanning itself is much<\/em> faster. It can optionally use OCR to try to help name the files, e.g. figuring out the vendor and date for receipts. This works surprisingly well, although it’s slow even for tiny documents on an M1 Mac. The scanner will pause for a few seconds before it lets me start scanning the next document. Maybe this limited subset of the OCR functionality runs on the scanner itself?<\/p>\n\n

TWAIN support is still missing. I also wish that it could preview the scan on the device’s own display, since, as mentioned, I don’t have the scanner set up next to the Mac. If previews are not a concern, you can avoid installing the Mac software entirely and just have it save the scans to an SMB share on your Mac.<\/p>\n\n

See also: Accidental Tech Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n