InfoCons App, internationally unique, independently and transparently developed, provides you with:
- Scanning QR codes on energy labels of household appliances and electronic devices;
- Scanning barcodes of agri-food products to find out ingredients, number and type of food additives, allergens, amount of sugar, salt, calories;
- All emergency and other useful numbers locally, nationally and internationally;
- Food and non-food alerts;
The FREE InfoCons app is available in 33 languages and supports consumers with useful, accurate, transparent and understandable information.
How does the FREE InfoCons app work?
The InfoCons app is organised in a minimalist way, with intuitively named buttons alongside descriptive icons. This makes it quick and easy for every consumer to access the buttons in the InfoCons app without any problems. To support consumers, a guide of the buttons in the app can be found below.
Once the app is opened, the consumer is greeted by a short tutorial of the features in the app, which can be watched or skipped via the “skip” button.
Further on, on the first page of the application, the consumer finds the buttons related to the facilities in the application, namely SOS, Alerts, Saved Products, Barcode/QR Code Scan, Menu, Dictionary of terms, Ingredients, Additives, Distribute, Account Login.
The “SOS” button together with the “!” icon redirects the consumer to a detailed list of all useful and emergency numbers in each country. Once this button is clicked, the consumer has the possibility to access from the list, the country they are in, or where they want to travel, to quickly find all the numbers they may need in case of an emergency, in English or the language of the selected country.
Emergency numbers can be called directly from the app by pressing the number of interest.
For Romania, consumers can also find out the waiting times at road border crossing points in real time, along with the map and the list of entry and exit points in the country.
The “Alerts” button, depicted with the “bell” icon, sends the consumer directly to the updated list of rapid alerts for food and non-food products according to EU standards.
Rapid Food Alerts include information such as:
- Date the alert was issued (from most recent to oldest);
- Explicit product description;
- Countries concerned;
- Problem identified with the product;
- Degree of risk (from low, undetermined, to serious)
Information is essential for consumers, helping them to make informed product choices. So if a product is covered by one of the Rapid Food Alerts, consumers can avoid potential problems that may arise.
In terms of non-food quick alerts, the app renders:
- Product name
- Concerned country;
- Degree of risk;
- Product overview;
- Date on which the alert enters into force;
- Image of the product subject of the alert;
The “Saved products” button directs the consumer to a list of all the products they have saved from the scan. This section allows the consumer to select the products they want to eat at a meal, with which they want to compose their daily menu or recipes, to find out the following:
- Total amount of sugar;
- Total amount of salt;
- Total number of food additives (E’s);
- How many times a particular food additive is repeated;
- Total number of calories.
The “Scan Barcode/QR Code” button supports consumers with two important functions:
- By scanning the barcode of agri-food products, you have direct access on your mobile phone to:
- Instant display of information on agri-food labels in the selected language
- Ingredients of the scanned product;
- Number and type of food additives accompanied by an explicit description;
- Number and type of allergens found in the scanned product;
- Nutritional values (amount of salt, sugar and calories);
- Calculator where you can enter the amount of product consumed to instantly find out the amount of salt and sugar, the number of calories and the sports activities needed to burn calories (walking, running and cycling);
- Possibility to give a rate from 1 to 5 to all the products;
- Saving the scanned product in the “Saved Products” section, allowing consumers to create their own shopping list, daily/weekly menu, recipes, etc. From the “Saved Products” section, by simply ticking the products, consumers can find out the total number of food additives, the total amount of sugar and the total amount of salt. They can also share the ticked products that make up the shopping list, daily/weekly menu or recipes with family and friends.
- Customise the app according to your consumption preferences: maximum number and type of food additives, maximum salt, maximum sugar, allergen type and maximum calories.
- Sharing scanned products with friends and family.
- Possibility to make a complaint directly from the application, by filling in a simple form with pre-defined fields. Thus, if the consumer encounters problems with the scanned product, they can send a complaint directly from the InfoCons App.
- Share button – By pressing the “share” button, the consumer can share the products they have scanned with family, friends, colleagues, so that they know how many E’s, how much salt, how much sugar is in the products they want to consume/purchase, staying informed in this way.
- Complaint button – If the consumer has a problem with a particular product, they can submit a complaint directly in the app by filling in the form and pressing the button with the same name. In this way, the InfoCons application facilitates the whole process of submitting a complaint, allowing the consumer to submit the complaint at the very moment they encounter the problem.
- Your Choice button – Shows whether or not the product fits your consumer preferences, based on the settings in the “My Choice” section
- Save button – By pressing this button, the product is “sent” directly to the list of saved products. This allows the consumer to review the products they have saved and also, by simply selecting them from the list, find out the total number of E’s, as well as how many times a particular food additive is repeated, the total amount of salt and the total amount of sugar.
- Product Ratings – Consumers can vote for products they scan or already have in their list of saved products, giving them stars from 1 to 5. They can also see their rating by averaging the stars given by other consumers.
- Ingredients section – This section displays the ingredients of the scanned product in the language selected by the consumer. This means that the ingredients on the label are played directly on the mobile phone in a split second.
- Food Additives section – Food additives are listed in an explicit form, along with their number when simply scanning the products. While previously the consumer could be misled by the overly technical and complex terminology, InfoCons now shows how many food additives are in the scanned product and which ones.
- Allergens section – This section alerts the consumer to the number and type of allergens. In this way, the consumer finds out in advance if the scanned product contains an ingredient to which he/she is allergic.
- Warnings section – This section warns consumers about exceeding the maximum amount of salt or sugar recommended by the World Health Organization.
- Nutrition Facts section – This section brings to the consumer’s attention the nutritional values on the scanned product label. The amount of sugar, salt and also the calories are displayed directly on the mobile phone.
- Calculator section – A useful section for those who want to keep fit, is the one dedicated to calculating the minutes consumers need to spend walking, running or cycling to burn the calories in the scanned product. If the products are available in different quantities, or if the consumer only wants to consume a certain quantity of a product, the computer allows him/her to set the quantity of the product he/she wants in order to find out: the amount of salt, the amount of sugar and the calories of the selected quantity.
- Scan the QR code on the energy label of household appliances and electronic devices to find out information such as:
- Energy consumption calculator – allows consumers to find out how much energy a particular electronics and appliances product consumes over a period of time. This facility is useful in the context of purchasing reliable and sustainable products in terms of energy consumption and environmental protection.
- Energy class;
- Producer;
- General information type technical characteristics;
- Comparison with other similar products to find out which product best suits the preferences of each individual consumer.
- Recycle;
- The possibility to submit a complaint directly from the application about the scanned product when certain irregularities are detected, for example: the energy label on the product does not correspond to the label displayed in the application.
The category of household appliances and electrical devices whose QR codes can be scanned with the free InfoCons App include:
- Refrigerators;
- Dishwashers;
- Washing machines;
- Dryers;
- Televisions and computer monitors.
General Information button – Once clicked, the consumer receives information, technical characteristics, depending on the home appliance or electronic product scanned, such as: volume, date on the market, warranty, dimensions, etc.
Manufacturer button – Provides information on the manufacturer’s identity: name, registration No, organization verification status, contact, address, phone, email address.
Estimate Energy Costs button – The calculator integrated in this section helps the consumer to estimate energy costs based on their tariff. Once the tariff has been entered, the application automatically displays the amount to be paid in different currencies.
Compare with other similar products button – With this feature, the user can compare the scanned product with other similar products of the same or a different brand in the list. The comparator helps the consumer to make an informed choice of the product they want, in terms of energy consumption, size, etc.
Energy Label button – The consumer can view the energy label to compare it with the label displayed on the product.
Recycle button – Provides the consumer with useful information on the importance of recycling, separate collection, recyclable waste, etc.
Complaint button – If the consumer has a problem with a particular product, they can submit a complaint directly in the app by filling in the form and pressing the button with the same name.
The “Menu” button – the three superimposed dashes – Once opened, the menu allows the consumer to:
- to return to the Home Page;
- set their consumption preferences via the “My Choice” option,
- check your Inbox for the latest news, messages and updates;
- to return to the list of SOS emergency numbers;
- to return to the alerts section;
- access the list of saved products;
- access the barcode/QR scan button;
- create an account.
My Choice button – By clicking this button, consumers can pre-set their consumer preferences:
- maximum number of food additives “E’s”, but also the E’s they don’t want in the products they eat;
- the maximum amount of salt;
- the maximum amount of sugar;
- type of allergens;
- the maximum amount of calories;
After adding this information, the InfoCons application signals to the consumer whether or not the scanned product is in line with their pre-defined preferences.
Inbox button – Once accessed, the consumer will be redirected to the “For you” section where they can discover messages about updates, new product categories in the database or new alerts.
Change language button – This button allows you to choose the language in which the InfoCons information will be rendered. Once this button is clicked and the language changed, the application will display all buttons and sections in the selected language.
InfoCons app uses Blockchain technology
The InfoCons app uses blockchain technology to store media content related to products in the database. We’re talking here about the images and videos that the InfoCons team has collected for each product.
The decentralised storage solution chosen by InfoCons is Storj, a company whose mission is to provide storage for a decentralised Internet.
The idea behind Storj is for everyone with unused resources to participate in the world’s largest storage network. Basically, any company or person can contribute their unused space to the Storj blockchain. Storj further uses this space to store small parts of files uploaded by users. Thus, a file in Storj is stored in several pieces that are merged when it is consumed by a client (the InfoCons application in this case). Thus, information is delivered very quickly and securely.