Hi! So I've been using Seeing AI for over a year now, but can never get the camera to angle right and it ends up taking forever. This is leading me to consider smart glasses with a wider field of view even though I know they are expensive.
So, has anyone been able to read something with an OCR app on the first or second try? If so, what is your secret? :)
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I’ve had considerable…
I’ve had considerable success raising my phone, approximately 12 inches above the document. But the most important thing is bracing my raised elbow against a solid surface. That stabilization helps considerably.
A couple suggestions
Like the previous poster said, raise the phone about 12 inches above what you want to read. For bar code scans, you will get use to where they are on the product. For example, on a canned good, you can usually find the bar code close to the seam of the paper of the can towards the bottom.
Another suggestion is to lay your phone face down and slowly raise the document or whatever you are reading until you hear it speak. I do this with my phone and iPad when identifying spices to make my own rubs for my charcoal grill.
I hope this helps.
Gooseneck Lamp
I've used some of these OCR apps on my iPhone 7, and my experience has been hit-or-miss. I've got a gooseneck desk lamp though in my living-room/office, and that seems to help a little bit but not much. I'm moving back downstairs in the same building over the winter holidays, and the apartment into which I am moving was recently renovated. So perhaps I'll have better luck down there and on a newer iPhone. That said, I do really like these apps which can "see" for us. I think it's a clever idea and hope to do a lot more with OCR in the near future. The suggestion of propping an elbow up is a good one, and I never thought of it before.
Stabilization of your hand/phone is the key for me
If you can brace your hand/wrist against something stable, the top of a cup, against the side of the fridge, wherever you happen to be, if you can get your hand to be stable, this usually assist in identifying the text. The 12 inches above the document is also something that works quite well for me. Actually, it is somewhere between 8-12 inches for me. No matter how slow and steady you breathe, your body is still in slight motion. But, if you can get those muscles to relax on something, works like a charm, most of the time. You would be surprised to know the things I have braced my hand against, just so I can get that scanned quickly. 🤣