GUIDE · UPDATED SEPTEMBER 2026
Free QR file transfer tools, and when a lab needs more
Moving a file from a screen to a camera is not new, and it is not ours. Several open-source projects do it well, and some move bytes faster than Kionel. If all you need is the file, use one of them. This page says what they do, and what a regulated laboratory usually needs on top.
Written by Taha Bayar, a biologist working on laboratory data handover. Facts about other projects are taken from their public documentation in September 2026 and may have changed since.
What the free tools do well
- libcimbar uses colour barcodes instead of QR and reports about 850 kbit/s (roughly 100 KB/s) from a monitor to a phone — faster than any QR-based tool, Kionel included.
- sendmecongo records the screen with the phone's own camera app and rebuilds the file afterwards; it reports around 100 KB/s with a phone on a stand. Its roadmap lists encryption and an audit log as future work.
- LumenLink, QRShare and similar projects stream fountain-coded QR codes; on an ordinary phone, rates of tens of kilobytes a second are reported. In our own phone test, Kionel read a 117 KB file live in 10 to 24 seconds. Kionel also reads screen recordings, the approach sendmecongo uses.
What a regulated lab needs around the transfer
| Typical open-source tool | Kionel | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | From ~30 KB/s up to ~100 KB/s | 117 KB in 10–24 s live and about 7 s from a screen recording in our phone test; text compressed 4–10× |
| Encryption | Usually none: a photo of the screen is the file | AES-256-GCM, key tied to the receiving device |
| Knowing which device received it | No | Code comparison or one-time code; device keys |
| Record of the transfer | None | Signed dispatch and delivery records with the work order |
| Audit chain and printable report | None | Local hash chain; one-page report |
| Independent verification | — | Free Apache-2.0 verifier and in-browser check |
| Licence and support | Varies by project; community support | AGPL-3.0; commercial licence and support on request |
| Independent security audit | Not that we know of | Not yet — see the security page |
Which to use
- Personal or one-off transfer, nothing to prove afterwards: a free tool. libcimbar if speed matters most.
- Large files: none of these — use a controlled network route or a data diode.
- Regulated work where someone will later ask what moved, to where, for which order: this is the case Kionel is built for. The transfer is the easy part; the record is the product.
Try it on your own bench
Kionel is free and open source and produces both signed records. Verify them afterwards in any browser.