Newland BS80 Piranha II setup: charge, pair and scan

The Newland BS80 Piranha II is a pocket-sized cordless scanner. It sends barcodes to a PC, phone or tablet over Bluetooth, or to a PC over its USB-C cable, and it can store scans in its 1 MB memory when no device is in range. This guide takes you from the box to your first scan. Bar code names are quoted exactly as they appear in the BS80 Piranha II 2D User Guide.

Get to know the buttons and lights

The BS80 has three buttons and four status lights. You will use these names throughout the guide.

Which connection to use

The BS80 Piranha II uses standard Bluetooth (4.0, compatible with 3.0 and 2.1+EDR). It does not come with a USB radio receiver, so the PC needs built-in Bluetooth or a Bluetooth adapter. Newland gives a range of up to 50 m in open space; walls and other obstacles reduce it.

Charge the battery

1. Peel the protective film off the scan window.
2. Connect the scanner to a PC or USB power adapter with the USB-C cable. The Charging/Battery LED turns red.
3. Before first use, charge for 3 to 4 hours. The LED turns green when the battery is full.

Newland lists a charging temperature of 0 to 45 °C. A full battery lasts about 5 hours of continuous use on the 2D model and about 6.5 hours on the 1D model, both measured at one scan every 6 seconds.

If you have the optional cradle, connect it to a PC or USB power adapter with a USB-C cable and set the scanner in it. The scanner charges through its charging contacts. Newland lists the cradle for both NLS-BS8080-1D and NLS-BS8080-2D.

Switch the scanner on

Hold Scan/Power for 3 seconds. The Function LED shows the current mode: flashing blue means Bluetooth mode without a connection, steady red means USB mode.

To switch between Bluetooth mode and USB mode, the user guide says to hold Scan/Power and Function together for 3 seconds. If the Function LED does not change colour, check the button pictures on Newland's BS80 quick start sheet. Never use Scan/Power and Delete/Reset for this. By default the scanner switches itself off after 30 minutes without use. Press Scan/Power for 3 seconds to wake it again.

Choose the Bluetooth profile

Do this before you pair. Newland recommends trying HID first, then SPP, then BLE if you are not sure which profile your device uses.

1. Open chapter 1 of the user guide, section "Connecting the BS80 to Smartphone/Tablet".
2. Scan Enter Setup.
3. Scan Bluetooth HID (or Bluetooth SPP or Bluetooth BLE if your app needs it).
4. Scan Exit Setup.

A new scanner is already set to Bluetooth HID, so for most users this step only confirms the setting. The same bar codes are also in chapter 5, section "Operating Modes".

Pair with a phone or tablet

1. Make sure the scanner is in Bluetooth mode (Function LED blue).
2. On the phone or tablet, switch off power-saving mode, as Newland recommends.
3. Open the device's Bluetooth settings and switch Bluetooth on.
4. Select the device named BS80XXXX in the list (the last characters vary per scanner).
5. When pairing is complete, the Function LED on the scanner turns steady blue.
6. Open a notes app and scan a barcode to test.

On an iPhone or iPad, press Function to show or hide the on-screen keyboard while the scanner is connected, for example to type a quantity by hand.

Pair with a Windows PC

1. Make sure the scanner is in Bluetooth mode and discoverable: the Function LED flashes slowly blue with long on phases.
2. On Windows 11, open Start › Settings › Bluetooth & devices and set Bluetooth to On.
3. Add a new Bluetooth device and select BS80XXXX. Microsoft's article Pair a Bluetooth device in Windows shows the current steps.
4. Wait until the Function LED turns steady blue, then open Notepad and scan a barcode.

If the scanner does not appear in the list, it may still be paired with another device. Press Delete/Reset and Function together. This removes the old pairing and makes the scanner discoverable again.

Or connect with the USB cable

1. Connect the scanner to the PC with the USB-C cable.
2. Switch to USB mode (see "Switch the scanner on" above) until the Function LED turns steady red.
3. Open Notepad and scan a barcode. The scanner types the data like a keyboard; no driver is needed in this mode.

If nothing appears, scan Enter Setup, USB HID Keyboard (chapter 4, section "USB HID Keyboard") and Exit Setup. The other USB option, USB CDC, makes the scanner appear as a serial port and needs a driver; use it only if your software asks for a COM port.

Check the keyboard layout and test

As a keyboard, the scanner assumes a U.S. English layout by default. For phones and tablets, Newland advises setting the device keyboard to English (US). On a PC with an Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish, Polish or Czech layout, letters and symbols can come out wrong. Test with a barcode that contains letters, digits and symbols such as -, / or @, and compare the result with the text printed under the barcode.

If characters are wrong, set the keyboard country on the scanner or use the Alt-code fallback, as described in BS80 programming: keyboard layout, Enter, batch mode. The same guide shows how to add Enter or Tab after each scan.

Scan without a connection (batch mode)

By default the scanner tries to send each barcode at once, and a scan is lost if no device is connected. For stock counts and other work away from the PC, you can let the scanner store scans in its memory:

• Automatic Batch Mode stores scans only when the scanner is out of range and sends them automatically when the connection returns.
• Manual Batch Mode always stores scans. You send them when you are ready by holding Function for 3 seconds or by scanning Transmit Stored Data.

The Data LED flashes red while scans are waiting in memory. To remove a wrong scan from memory, press Delete/Reset and then scan the same barcode again. The bar codes are in chapter 5, section "Batch Mode"; the programming guide walks through them.

More BS80 help: BS80 troubleshooting covers pairing problems, wrong characters and battery lights. All guides for this model are on the BS80 guides page, and the scanner itself is on the BS80 Piranha II product page.