Most product authentication is designed for experts. Customs enforcement teams carry dedicated scanners. Supply chain auditors are trained to use them. Brand protection managers know what to look for. For these users, a multi-step verification process is acceptable and even expected. But counterfeits don’t only get caught at the border. They end up in the hands of ordinary consumers, bought in good faith from legitimate-looking sources. And when that happens, the only person who can verify authenticity in that moment is the person holding the product. That person has no training, no dedicated equipment, and no reason to persist if the process is slow or confusing.
The problem with expert-only authentication
Traditional authentication tools like serialised codes, specialist scanners and verification portals work well within controlled environments. They were built for professionals operating within defined processes. Consumer facing authentication is a different problem entirely. The variables are uncontrolled: lighting conditions, device type, user behaviour, context. A customer verifying cosmetics or a bottle of spirits, is not going to follow a six-step process or download a dedicated app. If your authentication requires any of those things, most consumers simply won’t do it. Which means your product could be counterfeit, and no one will ever know.
One shot to get it right
H010 was built around this constraint from the start. The product sits in a B2B2C space. Brands are the customer, but consumers are the end user of the authentication experience. That means H010 can’t rely on onboarding, instructions, or goodwill. “We’ve got a very limited window to get it right, otherwise they would just give up,” says George Hall, Co-Founder & CCO at H010. The scan must work the way a consumer naturally behaves, with phone out, camera open, label held at a natural angle, in whatever light happens to be available. No prompts. No repositioning. No second attempt. The benchmark for H010 was a two-second scan, because anything longer feels broken to someone who didn’t ask to be part of an authentication process.
Why the technology behind the scan matters
Meeting that standard is harder than it sounds, particularly with H010’s holographic labels. The same polymer structure that makes the labels impossible to counterfeit. Dual QR codes embedded in a shifting, iridescent surface makes them extremely difficult for a standard camera to read. Variable contrast, colour gradients, and surface reflection mean that open source QR libraries, built for clean flat inputs, fail frequently in real conditions. A scan that works in a lab, under controlled lighting, may fail consistently in the environments consumers use. This is why H010 uses Dynamsoft Barcode Reader as the decode engine behind every scan. Built for demanding real-world conditions, delivering consistent, sub-two-second results across the full range of lighting and device conditions a consumer might present. The consumer never sees any of this. They just scan and it works.
Authentication that works for everyone
The shift from expert-only to consumer-ready authentication isn’t just about convenience. It’s about where counterfeits cause harm. A fake product that slips past a customs check and reaches a consumer is a brand problem. A fake product that a consumer can verify themselves – instantly, with the phone already in their pocket – is a brand asset. It demonstrates that you take product integrity seriously, and it gives your customer a reason to trust what they’re holding. Authentication that only works for trained inspectors protects your supply chain. Authentication that works for anyone protects your brand.
See how H010 works in practice. Order a free sample pack and verify it yourself.