Developers
Notice: Cognex has made the difficult business decision to discontinue the Cognex Mobile Barcode SDK and Manatee Works Barcode Scanner SDK products. The official end date for the product line was September 30, 2025. Subscription renewals, software updates, and technical support are no longer available.
This site remains active only to provide access to static resources like documentation, the final software distribution files, and any license keys you held prior to the end of life.
Additional details are available here.
The Cognex Mobile Barcode SDK is available for iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and more. Our SDK can scan over 20 different 1D and 2D barcode symbologies used across a wide range of industries and applications.
The cmbWEB SDK leverages the multimedia features of HMTL5, CSS3, and Web Browser/HTML5 (WASM) to bring easy, reliable barcode scanning to virtually any web browser, including Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Microsoft Edge—on mobile devices and desktop systems alike.
Effective September 30th, 2025, the Cognex Mobile Barcode SDK as well as the legacy Manatee Works Barcode Scanner SDK are end-of-life and will no longer receive any updates or support. All existing subscriptions ended on 9/30/25.
If you did not execute the addendum to the license for the free, perpetual license, the SDK will cease to operate on 9/30/25 or very soon after.
Here are some important notes about the end of life of the product line:
As part of transitioning to a perpetual license, Cognex provided you with new license keys to replace your original license keys. The original keys you were provided at the beginning of your subscription enabled a feature where the SDK performs an online check with our license server periodically (about every 7 days) to make sure its license is still valid.
The new “disconnected” keys we provided turn off this feature, eliminating this online license check.
You can continue to use your original license keys for the next few months (before we turn off our license server), and even after (though this will be inefficient for your app as once our license server doesn’t respond, our SDK will try to contact it every time it is used instead of once every 7 days). Hence, we do encourage you to deploy the new, disconnected keys as soon as possible to eliminate the unnecessary online license check from your applications.
If you have been provided with a new disconnected, perpetual license key (image file) for the Cognex Mobile Barcode SDK for Web, then be aware that you MUST deploy this new license image before the end of your subscription period. Unlike our license keys for mobile operating systems, licenses for the Cognex Mobile Barcode SDK for Web do have an explicit expiration date encoded in them and barcode scanning will stop working when that date is reached.
Remember, when deploying a new license image for the web SDK, it is recommended to use a different filename than the current license image (be sure to update the call to setIcon() in your implementation with the new filename) to prevent any browser caching issues of the old license image file.
As mentioned above, the Cognex Mobile Barcode Developer Network website (https://cmbdn.cognex.com) will remain active for some months to come, allowing access to the SDK software distribution files and documentation if needed.
Longer-term, these resources will be located on Cognex’s main website, https://support.cognex.com. Note that the online, searchable knowledgebase from the developer network website will be migrated as a set of PDF documents. You can find the software and documentation here: https://support.cognex.com/en/downloads/mobile-solutions
You should copy and archive your license keys/license images if you have not already done so: once the Cognex Mobile Barcode Developer Network website goes offline, we will not be able to retrieve your keys.
If you need to deploy a new iOS application for an MX mobile terminal (MX1000, MX1100, or MX-1502 models), simply submit a Service Request at Cognex’s customer support site, https://support.cognex.com. Note that registration is required as the login you had for the Cognex Mobile Barcode Developer Network will not work with the support site.
When completing a service request, to expedite things, be sure to use a Subject of “MFi Request for MX mobile terminal” and provide all of the following information in the server request’s Description field:
Once the Customer Support team has this required information, they will submit the MFi request to Apple. You will receive confirmation when Cognex submits the request but understand that Apple can take up to 5 business days to process it. Cognex does not receive any notifications when Apple completes its processing.