Other Interesting Uses for Your Smartphone’s Camera (Aside From Taking Pictures)

Sure, your smartphone’s camera can be used for photos and
video chats, but it can do much more than that. Your phone’s
camera is a powerful tool you can use for everything from
finding better prices to navigation and translation. Your
smartphone’s camera is a full-fledged input device that makes
all sorts of creative apps possible. The apps mentioned below
are just examples — there are a variety of different apps that
do all of these things.

Look At Products in Person and Buy Them Online

There are a lot of good reasons to look at products
in-person before buying them, but online shopping can be
much cheaper. If you’re in a store, you can use an app on your
smartphone to scan a product’s barcode, instantly looking it
up
.Amazon offers one such app — scan a barcode with the Price
Check by Amazon app and you’ll be able to quickly locate the
product on Amazon and purchase it online if it’s cheaper.

Translate Foreign Language Text

Have you ever been in a foreign country and needed to
translate some printed text? These days, that probably
involves typing the foreign-language text into your
smartphone or laptop and using something like Google
Translate to translate it for you. However, there’s a better way
— if you’re using Google Translate, you can use the camera
function to snap a picture of the text. Google Translate can use
optical character recognition (OCR) to automatically interpret
the text and translate it for you. it’s not perfect, but it can
work surprisingly well and is faster than typing in words you
don’t recognize.

Augmented Reality Tricks

“Augmented reality” is a new buzzword, but a fairly
simple concept. With an augmented reality app, your
smartphone captures a live picture from its camera and uses
its software to interpret the image and modify it. Most
augmented reality apps show you a live video from your
camera, overlaying the image of reality with things that aren’t
actually there. For example, IKEA’s Catalog app now allows
you to use augmented reality to picture how a piece of Ikea
furniture would look in your home, although you need the
paper catalog to do this properly.

Pinpoint Nearby Locations

These apps can also be used to pinpoint nearby locations. For
example, the Monocle feature in Yelp’s app can display
markers for nearby businesses via augmented reality, pointing
the direction to them and showing you exactly where they are
without any need for a map. Other apps like Wikitude and
Layar function similarly. Augmented reality apps have
struggled to find real-world use cases, although they do make
all sorts of cool things possible.

Visual Search

Many search apps allow you to snap a photo from your
camera and use it to perform a search. For example, if you
snapped a photo of a product, you would see information
about the product. If you snapped a photo of a tourist
attraction, you’d see information about the attraction. These
visual search apps generally aren’t the most useful ways to
search, but they’re an interesting application of technology
and may be more useful in the future. On Android, Google
Goggles offers an official Google visual search experience.

Scan and OCR Documents

You can use your smartphone’s camera as a scanner
for receipts and other documents you come across. If you use
the correct apps, you won’t just be taking photos — the apps
will perform OCR (App here! ) to analyze the text and convert
it into a searchable PDF. You won’t get the same image quality
you would with a flatbed scanner, but this is a much faster,
on-the-go way to scan documents.

Scan QR Codes

Smartphone cameras can also be used to scan the QR codes
you see all over the place, from business windows and flyers
to advertisements on the street. QR codes generally aren’t
particularly useful, but they’re certainly widespread. Most QR
codes simply take you to an associated website. There are
other, more clever ways to use QR codes. For example, the
Google Authenticator app uses QR codes to quickly input your
credentials, while AirDroid uses QR codes to quickly
authenticate with your phone without entering a password —
just scan the code on your screen with the phone and you’re
good to go.

Use it as a webcam

Using the DroidCam Wireless Webcam or buying the
DroidCamX Wireless Webcam Pro turns your Android device
into a wireless webcam, letting you chat on Skype, Facebook,
Google+, and other programs. You can also use DroidCamX as
an IP, or Surveillance, Camera via your Internet browser
virtually on all networks. Use it as a pet cam, spy cam, or a
security camera. All you need is ,Connect your Phone over
Wifi or USB cable to your computer. A total bargain compared
to actual webcams sold in store!