datacolorColorReader – Identify Paint Color Instantly - Color Matching Tool - Designed For DIY, Painters, Designers and Facility Managers

Really great little color eye! I am an interior designer so I use this regularly. The app is easy to use and I love the ability to save colors & file them by client. Color is pretty darn accurate, I "tested" thoroughly on my own home and it was funny, the colors we bought direct from Ben Moore - 100% accuracy. The ones where we had Ben Moore colors matched by Sherwin Williams, most had a closer result from Sherwin Williams with the color we matched as one of the lesser match results or on two not even an option. The Sherwin Williams color from Sherwin Williams - accurate. To me, this feels like proof that color matching from another vendor won't be the most accurate, not that the reader is incorrect. It is also super handy for pulling colors out of fabrics, art, or items clients may already own. Love this little tool and keep it in my bag at all times. It never looses charge & a soda exploded in my bag and I freaked trying to dry it off... it was totally fine. Personally, I don't think I would use the pro version with the display, it's a big upcharge and the app is so useful & handy to save things, not worth it in my opinion.

There are many contenders in this field, but this in my opinion is the only one that provides the best balance between accuracy, ease-of-use and price. At $99 only one or two devices are cheaper but sadly they are a big drop off in accuracy and simplicity. The few more expensive models, including ColorReader Pro also by Datacolor, don’t provide significant improvements in accuracy or overall performance to warrant the price premium.First time running the free app for Android and iOS, it will need sometime to download all the fan decks, but once that is done the app is responsive and easy to navigate. Whatever color you read with your ColorReader will be matched against those fan decks and the best matching returned.This is much better alternative to purchasing multiple paint samples and trying them out, and is in my opinion the best bang for the buck.

ProsVery easy to use.It is very good IF you know which brand of paint you used to paint your wall in the first place.ConsColor matching is not for spot repairs if it is from a different brand of paint that was originally used.I ended up painting just one wall instead of all four walls, and it was not noticeable unless you knew only one wall was painted. So it saved time and money.Does not work too well if the paint surface is not smooth. So, care must be used to aim the sensor at the smoothest part of the surface, and to take several readings to take an average.

I’m a professional painter and when I discovered this device I was amazed. It saved me a lot of time and visits to the job site or paint store. No more need to compare swatches/ fandecks or bringing samples to the paint store to match AWESOME! The device never really picked the exact color for me but aged paint wouldn’t. Never the less it always came up close enough and only ever had one complaint matching a color with one of those customers that knows exactly what was there and you still could never get away with touch ups as usual. As far as the device itself after some time of use it failed to calibrate. Customer service seemed great and very helpful but after a bunch of back and forth Data Color would not replace it. I loved it so much I purchased one through Amazon as my local paint store could get there hands one one. My second one I only used a couple times and gues what? ITS FAILING TO CALIBRATE!!! I informed the company and right now we are in the back and forth thing with their suggestions. I thought the product was great but I’m not spending $130 every few months. I’m going back to old school the way we did it before this product until I find a device that can hold up to normal use or find a company with a great device they are willing to stand by or replace if it’s failing. I know I can’t be the only one with this issue. Save your money and get a fan deck until they stand behind their product enough to replace it when it fails

I had no problems connecting the reader to my phone and taking readings. It's the actual color matching process that I have trouble with. When you take a reading, you get 3 values, "L", "a" and "b". It then finds the closest match in a series of Fan Decks (Benjamin Moore, Miller Paint, etc). There are a lot of fan decks that I've never heard of. In my area, I have Home Depot and Lowes. At Lowes, only the Benjamin Moore color names have entries. And at least at Lowes, they can't use the L,a,b values directly. So you have to find the closest color that they know the name of. The reader tells you how close the named color is to your reading, but the default with all fan decks selected had a "delta" of like 1.4. When I narrowed the list down to Benjamin Moore, it found one with a delta of 0.47. Maybe I just haven't yet figured out exactly how to use this reader but it's definitely not just "scan and go get your paint"

I manage 5 buildings and keeping up with all of the colors was a nightmare before I got this color reader. This little tool is spot on! I can put it on a wall that we painted yesterday or a year ago and it comes up with the match. Well worth $100. It would be well worth $500. I bought it after another facility manager was using it. It was really accurate. He was telling me the name of the paint we just painted. I bought it and it is one of my favorite tools. Put it on a paint fan deck from any manufacturer and it will tell you the color. Plus you can use it on materials like cloth or fabric to match a pillow or curtains. It is truly amazing. You really can’t go wrong.