ProvenanceScan - point your phone at a gadget and see where every chip was born
A consumer app that turns a barcode or model number into the manufacturing story behind it: which factory assembled it, who made the flash and controller chips, sustainability and labor flags, and a tap-through to a teardown video.
Conscious consumers and right-to-repair advocates who want provenance, not just specs
- Barcode and model-number scan returning factory, assembler, and component suppliers
- Sustainability and labor-rating overlay using public supply-chain disclosures
- Tap-through to teardown guides and repair manuals
- Wishlist that alerts you when provenance data becomes available for a product
EU right-to-repair and battery-passport regulations force manufacturers to publish provenance; a 13-year-old bunnie.huang teardown still hitting the HN front page in 2026 shows persistent curiosity about where everyday electronics come from.
Country-of-origin barcode scanners (Made Where, ScanCanada, CanScan AI, Check The Label) exist and are being downloaded, but they answer 'which country' — not chip-level factory provenance; bunnie.huang's Factory Floor essays remain a niche-but-persistent curiosity rather than mass demand.Want to buy Canadian? There's an app for that | CBC News ↗Made Where? ↗
iFixit covers teardowns for repair and TechInsights sells B2B BOM teardowns; no consumer app surfaces chip-level factory provenance + labor/sustainability flags via barcode/ model lookup. The 'Made Where' class only does country-of-origin.Gadget Teardowns - iFixit ↗TechInsights: What's Really Inside Your Competitor's Product? ↗
All analogous consumer apps (Made Where, ScanCanada, CanScan AI, Check The Label) are free; no public evidence of consumers paying for chip-level provenance, and the underlying data only becomes freely available when regulations force disclosure.Made Where? ↗
EU Battery Regulation 2023/1542 mandates digital battery passports with core enforcement from Feb 2027 (data collection ramping through 2026) and the broader ESPR will extend DPP-style disclosure to more electronics categories — strong multi-year regulatory tailwind.EU Battery Passport Guide — Requirements, Timeline & Compliance ↗EU Battery Regulation 2026: What Manufacturers Must Deliver ↗
App shell (barcode scan + model lookup + teardown video links) is straightforward, but accurate chip/factory/labor data is not publicly published today and the EU DPP feeds only start landing in 2026–2027, so the MVP will depend on crowdsourced/manual data and will be patchy.EU Battery Passport & Regulation 2023/1542: 2026 Compliance Guide ↗