How LimsRat actually works.

No. There's no signup, no username, no password anywhere in the app — not even for sync. Open the app and start tracking samples immediately.

The entire app is free for a lab syncing up to 5 devices. Lab Sync raises that to 10 devices for $9/month per lab, and adds bulk QR label printing, combined multi-sample reports and the full Lab health page — adding more people to the same lab costs nothing extra. See Pricing for the full breakdown.

Any modern browser — tested on Chrome, Edge, and Safari, desktop and mobile. Peer-to-peer sync and camera scanning both rely on browser APIs (WebRTC, camera access) that all three support. Connecting a folder needs Chrome or Edge. In Safari or Firefox, use Export all for backups, and Import backup to bring a backup or a folder back.

Yes. The Scan button uses your phone or computer camera and reads QR codes and the common barcodes: Code 128, Code 39, EAN-13, EAN-8, UPC-A and UPC-E. If the code matches a sample ID, that sample opens. If it doesn't, LimsRat starts a new sample with the code as its ID.

LimsRat uses the text in the barcode as the ID. A vendor barcode that holds a lot or catalogue number will create a sample with that number. If you'd rather keep your own IDs, print a QR label for each sample from LimsRat and scan that.

Not supported yet: Data Matrix codes (common on rack tubes), and scanning a whole rack or box at once. You scan one code at a time. The camera image is read on your device and goes nowhere else.

In your browser's local storage (IndexedDB) on each device — reads never wait on a network round trip. You can also connect a folder on your own disk, and every sample mirrors there as a plain JSON file, readable by anything, even without LimsRat.

Nothing happens to it — it was never on our servers to begin with. If you've connected a folder, your files are already sitting on your disk. Either way, the built-in CSV export and zip backup of your samples mean you always have a copy outside the app.

Yes — CSV import walks you through mapping your existing columns to LimsRat's fields, so you're not starting from zero.

Sync traffic between your paired devices is encrypted in transit, using WebRTC's built-in DTLS. Data stored locally in your browser follows your browser's own storage security, the same as any other site you use.

Lab health is a page in the app that shows how safe and tidy your lab's data is. On the free plan it shows when you last backed up, and a small dot appears beside it in the sidebar when a backup is more than 14 days old.

With Lab Sync it also checks your samples for missing or unreadable details, lists what to do first, notes samples near their expiry or waiting too long in a stage, and shows which paired devices have not synced lately. All of it is worked out on your own device, and nothing is sent anywhere.

On the old device, choose Export all. It downloads a zip with your samples, their history, your workflow stages and your storage locations. On the new one, choose Import backup and pick the zip, or drop it anywhere on the page. You can also pick or drop a folder: an unzipped backup, or the folder you connected for sync. Export CSV is different: it gives you your samples as one spreadsheet file to open in Excel or Sheets, but it is not a backup, because it leaves out history, workflow stages and storage locations.

LimsRat shows you what is in it first, with the number of samples, history entries, stages and storage locations, and imports nothing until you press Import. If some of the samples are already there, you can keep your current versions or let the backup replace them.

In Chrome or Edge, connecting the same folder on the new device brings everything back too.

Yes. Stages never block a move. A sample can go to any stage at any time, including back to an earlier one or past several. LimsRat shows where samples usually go next, based on what your lab actually does, and you can always choose a different one. Every move has an Undo.

If you give a stage an expected time (in days), a sample that stays longer turns amber, and red once it has stayed twice as long. If you don’t set an expected time, nothing is flagged. Stages that finish a sample’s journey, like Complete, are never flagged.

Typical time is measured from what has really happened in your lab. For each stage, LimsRat looks at how long samples stayed before moving on and shows the middle value, so one sample that got stuck doesn’t skew it. Samples still in the stage aren’t counted yet, and a stage needs at least three finished stays before it shows a typical time; until then the Map says “Not enough moves yet”. Target time is the one number you choose: set it for a stage in Edit stages (on the device that manages your workflow). It’s optional. Without one, the Map still shows how many samples are in each stage, how long the oldest has been there, how long stays usually are and where samples usually go next. You just don’t get the amber and red flags.

Yes. On a phone the board shows your stages as a row of chips. Press and hold a sample, then drag it onto a stage, or tap the “…” button on the sample and pick a stage. On a larger screen you can also switch to a table, sort it, and move many samples at once.

Yes. In Settings, turn off “Use the new workflow view” at any time. Your stages and samples are the same in both views, so nothing is lost by switching. New labs start on the new view, and a lab that already had stages keeps the view it knew until someone chooses to try the new one.

Two devices pair using a short code or QR scan, then connect directly over WebRTC — the same peer-to-peer technology behind video calls. A small relay server helps the two devices find each other, but it only ever brokers that initial handshake — it never sees your sample data, which travels directly between your own devices.

Yes. Your workflows and their stages, including the order and the Chart layout, sync between the devices in your lab, the same way samples do, so every device shows each sample in the right stage. It is on by default, and each device can turn it off in Settings (“Share workflow setup between devices”). If your devices already had different stages, LimsRat shows you which ones look like the same stage and lets you confirm; nothing is lost or renamed in a sample’s history.

One device in your lab manages the workflow setup. By default that is the device that set the lab up (or the one that bought Lab Sync). Only that device can add, rename, reorder or delete stages; the others show the setup read-only. Every device can still move a sample to any stage, backwards or skipping stages. You can hand the job to another device from the workflow page, and cancel the offer until it is accepted.

Remove it from your lab in the paired-devices list, then take over the workflow from another device. Your samples don’t depend on it, and the other devices keep working with the last workflow setup they received in the meantime.

LimsRat flags it as a conflict and asks a person to resolve it. It never silently picks a winner and discards someone's change — data integrity isn't a guess.

5 devices free, 10 on Lab Sync. That's a device count, not a per-seat charge — put as many people on those devices as you want.

No. Checkout for Lab Sync runs entirely through Lemon Squeezy, our payment processor — they handle and store your card details, not us. A successful purchase gives you a license key tied to a device fingerprint. That's a receipt, not a login with us.

Through Lemon Squeezy's own customer portal — the same place that processed your payment. You can open it from Settings in the app, with Manage or cancel subscription on the device that bought Lab Sync. Cancel anytime; your data and the free tier's 5-device limit keep working afterward, no penalty.

No, and LimsRat makes no 21 CFR Part 11, HIPAA, or ISO 17025 claim. It's built for research labs tracking their own samples — not regulated clinical studies, which need a validated system.