i cant get talking goggles to work

It's awesome when it works, which is about 16% of the time. A few things to bear in mind:
When in video mode, double tap "Stop" to stop streaming video, then "Record" to stream again.
Double tap "flash off" to turn flash on. The button says its state; toggling it changes the state.
Goggles results will be affected by a bunch of things, including but not limited to:
*Latency. You may hear back from what the camera was seeing two or five or ten seconds ago.
*Lighting conditions. Sometimes flash is good; sometimes it just creates glare.
*Selectivity. I believe that if Goggles sees a logo and some text, it may just read the logo.
*Your camera skills. Read up on blind photography (I recommend "Getting the Picture" from NBP) to learn about focus, distance, etc, but the bottom line is that your camera technique matters a lot.
*Nature of text. Fancy stylized text, handwriting, faded signs, etc won't give Goggles enough to work with. Conversely, if there's a lot of text, Goggles will still just read the few lines it has in focus, so another tool like Prizmo or KNFB is better for reading documents.

To sum up, Goggles is a fun preview of what's to come in environmental text recognition, so have fun, but don't spend any time trying to get this app to work for you as an everyday productivity tool. It isn't one.

Hi there, I use this ap all the time and like it a lot. So if it says still camera that means it is in video mode. So I hold it up and wait a little bit and eventually it starts to talk. So don't get too impatient, give it time to recognize it. Mine was free though, not paid.

I bought Prismo and haven't gotten it to read anything to me. I think that was a waste of five bucks.

Carlos:

In the Talking Goggles app, the buttons always say what action they will perform if pressed. Thus, if the button says "Stop", recording will stop; if it says "Record", the app is not taking video or stills and you press that button to start this up again. Same goes for the Flash. If the button says "FlashF", the Flash is active and hitting the button will turn Flash off; if it says "Flash", then flash is already off and hitting the button will turn on Flash. Incidentally, whether Flash should be ON or OFF depends upon what you're trying to do, the ambient lighting, the background against which you are viewing whatever image you want to get, etc. In other words, you're asking the wrong question. You always ask "what should be the best setting?" when you should be asking "what works in a given situation" and only you can find this out for yourself for we cannot place ourselves in your shoes.

As another commenter has said, be patient. Allow the app some time to think and analyze before you give up. Unlike tapTapSee or Vizwiz, Talking Goggles is strictly machine-based and your phone is really doing the analysis (as opposed to the other apps mentioned which depend upon humans being paid from nothing to slave wages to look at your pics). Also, if you're using a 17-inch monitor and you want to get Talking Goggles to give you an idea what's showing on the screen (it won't be perfect but it really can help you in some situations when your computer isn't talking), lean back with the phone two or three feet from the screen. Also, I orient the phone parallel to the screen so the phone can get the maximum image; this means that the phone is on its side with camera pointing toward the machine.

Bottom line: BE ADVENTUROUS! EXPERIMENT! This isn't like learning to operate a cassette player or your automobile's stereo system. While documentation is good and I wish there were more manuals out there, a lot depends upon talent and a willingness to experiment for these apps trying to "see". Just shows you how much brain effort including knowledge of past experiences goes into sight.

Use a light detector app (there are a few free ones) to first determine if you are going to need the flash. I have light perception, and thought it was bright enough, but even I use a light detector app and find it helpful as it's more precise than I am.

I second the recommendation for "Get the Picture" a wonderful book well worth the money, even for those on fixed income. It will help you to more fully utilize free camera-based identification apps.

I found the best place to practice Talking Goggles was Walmart. Because there are shelves loaded with stuff and plenty of bright light, you have so many opportunities. It's very slow on my iPHONE 5C, so understand that you are going to need to wait for it to process what it sees.

Also, as a blind person, when I identify something by touch, I move my hand around. And with a barcode scanner, I move the object or the scanner around. With this app, try to keep it still and focused on what you want it to see. Lots of movement only confuses it!

I find Talking Goggles to be incredibly useful. When I just need to identify something, I use Talking Goggles.

For example, I wanted to find some antihistamines in the medicine cabinet this morning. I grabbed what i thought might be it. I held it, still, in front of the camera. In a few seconds it read enough to tell me to keep looking. The next thing was a winner.

I don't mess with any of the options, and I don't remember ever setting them. I think I am using it in the default mode.

When I need to know more detailed information about a product, I will scan with Digit Eyes. If it's a document, I will scan with KNFB Reader. But if I am just looking to identify something based on some text on it, Goggles is the first app I try.

I use it to read the screen of my keyboard. It's effective about 60% of the time. It does it read everything on the screen, and it doesn't even read very accurately, but what it does read is usually enough to tell me where I am in the menu structure. I tried using K NFB reader, but it's not really good for reading a screen…