Just stumbled across this little treat of a gadget, which looks like it’s simply an easier way to grab cool scans with your smartphone while ensuring the output is optimized properly. There’s so many things that can go wrong, right?

We all know how easy it is to grab a quick snap of something with the old camera thingy on the phone, but often what comes out is less than great. Skewed images, dark, lack of focus and all that horrible mess that comes with shaky hands and a dodgy lighting environment.

But this new SnapLite looks like it could really sort things out. It’s not on sale in Japan until 28th of this month, and it basically looks to be a Bluetooth enabled scanner stand for the iPhone. Pop your phone onto the mount, fire up the app, which will automatically sync the unit with the phone using Bluetooth and you’re ready to go.

The unit comes with it’s own laser guide light to make sure you line up the document or item correctly, as well as it’s own light source. Once you’re happy, press the scan button on the base of the unit and you’ll grab the snap/scan. Take a look at the video below to see how it works.

The software can adjust for things like skew, and you can also use the app to adjust the type of lighting that the unit gives out, from neutral to warm in 5 settings. And the app even offers the ability to stitch together multiple images into one larger image on the fly. And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s a USB port round the back which you can use for charging the phone at the same time. Cool.

The SnapLite will be available from Amazon.co.jp after the 28th May, at a Japanese price of 12,800 Yen, or $125.76. Now we just need an Android app to go with it and it’ll get 5 stars from us.

https://vimeo.com/95749073