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Google’s Lookout app allows you to use your smartphone’s camera to describe what’s there, making it a valuable tool for the blind and partially sighted.
Lookout: Not Yet All Functions in the Netherlands
Google has significantly expanded its Lookout app, offering even more options for the blind and partially sighted. With this app, you can use your smartphone’s camera to identify objects, find objects, and read texts, among other things. And now you can also talk to the app about what is being shown.
The application is very similar to Google Lens and uses largely the same technology, except that more functions have been added that can specifically help people with visual impairments in everyday life.
Different Modes
In the app, press the top left corner to choose a mode.
- Text: Point the camera of your smartphone at a text and have it read aloud.
- Documents: Use this mode if you want to have a longer text read aloud, for example, a letter by post.
- Explore: This allows you to point the camera at something in your environment and the app will tell you what you see.
- Currencies: Point your camera at a banknote to identify it. At the top of the screen, you can indicate which currency it concerns. Currently, the Euro, US Dollar, and Indian Rupee are supported.
- Nutrition Labels: This allows you to scan barcodes or labels of products. This option is not yet available for Dutch products.
Pictures: This option is new and is still offered in beta. The idea is that you can upload an image from your smartphone and Lookout will tell you what it shows.
Best Feature Yet in the Netherlands
If you upload an image yourself, you can also ask questions about it. If it is a picture of dogs, you can ask, for example, how many dogs are in it and what breed the dogs are. This option is not yet available in the Netherlands but will eventually be rolled out worldwide.
The description of the images is also disappointing in the Netherlands. Upload an image of a dog and the app will say, for example, ‘dog, grass, tree’. With the new version, you get a whole story about what the dog and the environment look like.
In Practice
The app works quite well in practice, but you do have to get a bit of practice with it. In text mode, you have to keep the smartphone very still because if you move slightly, the app will read the text again. In document mode, you get audio instructions on whether you should hold the smartphone further away or closer. Then, everything on the document is actually read out.
In the app, Google warns that the ‘explore’ mode is still in beta, but the function already works well. You point your camera at a coffee cup and the app says out loud that it is a coffee cup. Yet things still often go wrong. Then a fan becomes sunglasses, or an air fryer becomes a corded telephone. So it’s not surprising that Google keeps calling it a beta.
The currency mode works great but only with the previously mentioned currencies. As mentioned, Dutch nutrition labels are not yet supported, and the image mode is still limited in our country.
Also Take a Look at the Settings
It’s worth taking a quick look into Lookout’s settings. You can get there by tapping on your own head at the top right of the app and then tapping ‘settings’. Here, you will find, among other things, the option to adjust the pitch and speaking speed of the voice. You can also disable the flashlight from turning on automatically here.
Download Lookout
More Accessibility Features
Because there are many accessibility options on Android that you may not know about, we’ve written a guide that goes through all the options. Read our guide to accessibility on Android now.