What does text recognition do?

The PeekSmith app is using the handwriting recognition service by Google. You can send handwritings from the Doodle screen, from the WEB-doodle or from supported impression boards, and you will receive the recognized text. This text can be displayed on your PeekSmith device, supported smartwatches and all other displays (you'll need the External Displays add-on for this to work).

The prerequisites of using text recognition

To use the text recognition feature, you must have your Username and PIN set up first. If you haven't set your Username and PIN yet, go to USER SETTINGS and tap the empty Username field.

You will also have to turn ON the "Enable text recognition" option in the TEXT RECOGNITION section.

Recognition credits (for Google engine)

If you use Google as the recognition engine, the recognition of one page (no matter how many text it contains) uses 1 recognition credit. Every user gets 250 credits for free when they create their user account. If you're running out of credits, you can buy 1500 credits for 5 EUR. You can check your credit balance in the TEXT RECOGNITION section ("Recognition credits left").

Click here to buy 5000 recognition credits for 15 EUR

Using A.I. text recognition

If you already have the "API + A.I. access" add-on, you can enter your own OpenAI API key to be able to use A.I. based features, like text recognition, image analysis and more.

IMPORTANT: If you go with this option, you will not use Google as the recognition engine, and you won't need to buy any recognition credits from me.

For details and instructions please visit this page: API + A.I. access add-on

Triggering text recognition

The recognition should be triggered, either automatically or by invoking an action. In the TEXT RECOGNITION section you have the following options:

Trigger when idle: you can set a timer that will trigger recognition automatically X seconds after the user stopped writing on the Doodle screen or impression board. For example if you set this to 5 seconds, and the user writes a word, text recognition will automatically happen 5 seconds after they stop writing.

Trigger when face down: if you're on the in-app Doodle screen, and you turn the phone face down, text recognition will be triggered. Use this option if you give your phone to the spectator to write something, then they should put the phone face down so you can't see their writing.

Trigger when top covered: text recognition will happen when you cover the top portion of the phone (if the phone has a proximity sensor). Use this option if you give your phone to the spectator to write something, then they should hold the phone close to their chest to cover it.

Trigger when BLUE selected: if you're on the Doodle screen, and you select the BLUE color, then text recognition will start. For example you can ask your spectator to write a word, then draw something in blue color... (or give them any other reason to select the BLUE color).

There is also a "Trigger text recognition" action which can be assigned to PeekSmith buttons, PeekSmith 3 movements or magnet sensor events, Atom remote buttons, Apple Watch screen taps or swipes, WearOS watch screen taps or volume button presses. Check out the ACTION CONTROL section in the settings to see available actions.

Clearing the screen after recognition

There is a setting called "Clear doodle after recognized" which means you can automatically clear the doodle screen X seconds after the text recognition was triggered. Use this option if you would like to recognize writings from multiple spectators, using an impression board. A spectator writes a word, you trigger text recognition, and X seconds later the spectator (or another one) can write a new word, and that can be recognized as well.

Recognizing numbers only

If your spectator has to write numbers only, you can enable the "Numbers only" option. If enabled, you will have two new options for the LOTTO routine or for Pi Revelations (4 digits). I will explain these features in another article.