[Feature Request] Use Camera to Log Your Meal
Gold Feature:
Take a picture of your food and have it log the information for you. You can use a chatgpt integration to add this feature. This will make logging take less than 10 seconds for most users.
Comments
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I’m currently with MacroFactor because they just added this feature. I would 100% switch to Cronometer if they added this because I prefer the reports and custom biometrics that Cronometer offers. However, the ability to take a quick picture and have AI identify it is essential for me. It’s obviously not perfect, but we’re in 2025 and the AI models are very good by now - much better to have this than skip logging while out at a restaurant or something like that.
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From other posts requesting this, some users are very adamant they need absolute precision and don’t want this. Others are equally adamant that they do, at least for occasional use, and they are willing to accept the imprecision. It seems like if you don’t want to use it, you certainly wouldn’t have to.
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@Shurafa It also makes it very inaccurate. Other trackers have this now, good luck!
@ac437573 Given you know how inaccurate it can be, you know you'd also be losing adaptive TDEE which is the most important thing for a macro tracker, why wouldn't you fight for Crononmeter to streamline additions to the diary in rapid succession as MF does? Both of those would be far better benefits to everybody that guessing at pictures.
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How does the ChatCGP integration work? And, how do you integrate it?
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@Shurafa, I have looked at “connected apps,” I don’t see a connection to ChatCGP. I have CGP on my devices, I can’t imagine that it just works.
I would like to test this. Oura has a similar feature, but, it doesn’t add nutrition information. My comment to them was to look at Cronometer’s data.
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This would be very usefull when traveling... Until Cronometer get such feature, I take photo with Gemini and then estimate calories with prompt... Then I enter that data into Cronometer as a custom meal called "Bulk Calories". It's OK for total calories but macros are then completely off...
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@delimir it’s in beta. Look for the “beta test” channel for more information.
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Well, I went through this with Zoe when I had joined them for 6 months alongside cronometer, and Fin, their bot sucked in the kitchen 🤷. I just tried yours, and at least you also give the results in g, not just cups. That helps somewhat. This is a good tool if you're eating out and having to guesstimate anyway, but for 95% of my meals it's too much action to constantly correct the results--especially if recipes are involved. I'm a plant-based whole foodie and come up with the weirdest concoctions 😜 that your AI couldn't dream up! He told I had mayonnaise in my salad 🤢. I had made my own tahini dressing instead, but he didn't know that of course. I prefer to log on the computer while at home. I love your recipe function and the fact that I can log small amounts in grams. That alone makes the monthly fee worth it. I think you guys rock!!
I would love to have a photo option when adding a new recipe; not to tell me what I put in, just to log it as a visual with the recipe card for future use.
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Camera logging is not very accurate.
A photo simply does not contain enough information to accurately estimate calories.
For example, if you pour 20g of melted butter over your breakfast and then take a photo, it may look almost identical to the same meal without butter. Yet that small amount of butter alone adds roughly 140–150 calories.
You can test this yourself with AI photo-based calorie tracking tools. Give them photos of the same meal with and without added butter or oil, and you'll quickly see how unreliable image-based calorie tracking can be for accurate intake estimation.
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I tend to disagree. It recognizes much more than I expected when I started to use this feature. An example with butter is one of these easy tasks where the level of recognition is quite high (sauces, oils, seeds, etc.). Camera logging is not 100% accurate, but that is with all food logging. Even label-based logging can vary up to 30% in comparison with real calories. For me, it’s a perfect feature when I am on business travel to quickly snap a breakfast plate in a hotel and have some estimation of my daily calorie intake.
The quality of camera logging probably depends also on the phone camera quality, and I am quite happy with this feature using newer iPhones.
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How can a photo tell if a dish has 20g of melted butter vs 50g? Visually there is hardly any difference.
I actually tested it on the latest device by pouring 20g vs 50g melted butter and it showed almost the same calorie estimate.
Funny thing is, “MacroFactor” didn’t invent any AI for calorie tracking, it mainly uses models like Gemini. You can even ask Gemini itself how accurate AI models are at detecting calories from images.
Calorie tracking apps do not have enough budget to train better image models than Google.
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Why mentioning "MacroFactor“? I thought this was about Cronometer?
I know about Gemini, as this is how I was estimating "travel calories" before the feature was added. Now it's much more convenient as everything is inside the app. I don't log with a camera at home; I use barcode scanning or favorites...
Align your expectations and correct readings if there is some large discrepancy. It's still very usefull if used correctly.
