Google recently announced that even users without their premium Pixel phones could try Google Lens, that lets you learn more about real life objects. It’s able to recognise landmarks, flowers, animals and food and can grab text from business cards or anything else for that matter.
With the latest version of Google Photos, you can tap on a photo and then the Google Lens icon, and the app will attempt to automatically recognise what it sees.
Only Android devices are currently supported, although support for iOS is coming soon [Update 20th March 2018 – now supported on iOS too]. If you have a premium Android phone, you can get live recognition via the camera app, without going through Google photos.
But for everyone else, you’ll need to take a photo using any smartphone including an iPhone, so long as you have your photos automatically synced to Google Photos. I’ve discussed Google Photos in detail in my recent article.
Then you can open the latest version of Google Photos, and try Google Lens on the the photo you’re interested.
I tried Google Lens on a few photos assembled in a Google Photos album with generally good results.
Here Google Lens correctly identifies the Valle de la Luna in Chile. Take a look my video for more examples, including grabbing text from a photo.
Overall Google Lens is quite impressive, although I’m not sure how much I’ll ever use it again after trying it out. But quickly pulling text from a document is handy, and being able to identify a flower for example, may keep me one step ahead of the children for just a little while longer.
Give it a try, and let me know what you think in the comments.
I hope you found this article useful. If you have any specific questions, please do ask below in the comments section – I will do my best to reply.
And as ever if you have found the review helpful, please consider using any Amazon links below or the link in the sidebar before any purchases. It doesn’t cost you a penny, and the small amount of commission I get will keep the site going! To get notifications of future content, please also visit my YouTube channel and like and subscribe to my videos there. Thank you!
Amazon links to products mentioned in review:
Google Photos
Samsung Tab A 2016 10.1
Griffin tablet stand
Google Pixel
Very good – I liked the way way you worked through the photos to test how well the locations were recognised. Excellent description of the app (?), and good point about how handy it would be for getting text from a document if you take a photo of it.
I just need to point out that you said that Cotehele is in England, but it is, of course, in Cornwall.
Great article! Haven’t heard of Google Lens before and will definitely try it! It’s good that they allow you to use it on devices other than the Google Pixel.