App to read LED displays?

By Duff, 11 January, 2022

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Can anyone recommend an iPhone app that can read the text (usually one short line) in an LED display such as that on a home alarm panel (e.g., "READY TO ARM" or "ALL SECURE, EXIT NOW")? Sometimes it's just two digits, such as the timer on a clothes dryer. I've tried Seeing A I, Envision, Supersense, and Apple's "live text" camera feature. These displays typically form their letters using 7 line segments, which seems (to me) like one of the simplest fonts for an app to recognize, and I can't understand why none of these apps can do it.

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Comments

By Duff on Monday, January 24, 2022 - 21:16

The Seeing A I developers have responded to me about this. They suggested that I try the Scene channel, take a photo, and explore the image by swiping left/right. Sure enough, the LED display text can be read in this manner. This technique requires several steps and is thus less convenient than, say, the Short Text channel, but it can come in handy in a pinch.