Snapkin is live on iPhone and Android. 😄
For the past few months, I’ve been working on a calorie tracker. I originally built it just for me.
I know it sounds boring. But I’ve tried many of them to lose a bit of weight. Most of them sucked, even the fancy ones with AI in their name. 😂
Some did a really bad job at using the AI, so I got bad estimates of my meals. Others were the old-school type. You had to pick your kind of yogurt from a long list. Then add the tomatoes you weighed beforehand. Then scan the barcode for the pasta. And so on.
I kept it up for maybe a few days, because I was motivated enough to try. But even then, there’s a limit to how much admin work you can do just to track how many calories you’re eating.
So I set out to build something else entirely, just for me. Something that suits my lifestyle and the way I like to live. That has become a new app: Snapkin .
The idea is really simple#
You take a photo of the food . Snapkin tells you how many calories are in there. Obviously, a photo only tells you so much. If the app isn’t sure about some of the numbers, it asks a few simple follow-up questions . Your answers make the estimate more accurate.
For instance, a photo doesn’t really tell you how much butter you used, or what exactly is hidden underneath a sandwich. Some things really have to be told, not guessed from a photo .
But that’s exactly what this app does: it starts from a photo. Sometimes it can work out on its own what’s on the plate and how you made it. Then no follow-up is needed, and you get a pretty good calorie estimate. If there are some unknowns, the app asks you. You tap a few times to answer.
The AI models of today work really well#
This works because the AI models have gotten really good. There have been photo tracking apps for a few years now. None of them turned out to be reliable.
I’ve tested over 50 different AI models. I spent a good chunk of money comparing them against known food plates , where the calories and the weight were already known. I only picked the ones that are actually accurate enough that I’m willing to ask money for this app.
With today’s AI models, I think an app like this is possible. Many of the competing apps still use the old models. Those are frankly just not good enough.
It learns from you#
There’s one cool little trick hidden inside this app. 😄 It can learn from your past meals and your past corrections . Think of it like the memory in OpenClaw or Hermes. The goal is that the app learns from everything you’ve corrected in the past.
Say you tell the app once that you eat skyr instead of yogurt. The next time it sees a blob of white stuff on your breakfast plate, it knows it’s skyr, not yogurt. Same for your favorite mayonnaise or ketchup. Take a photo of it once. The app remembers the brand, the grams and the calorie estimate, and uses those from then on.
The little extras#
On top of that, there are a lot of little convenience features in there:
- A coach where you can chat about what you could eat next.
- You can take a photograph of your fridge . It’ll tell you what you can eat or combine.
- If you’re at a restaurant, take a picture of the menu . It’ll sort the dishes by how calorie-heavy they are.
In other words: if you want to watch your weight and lose a few pounds or kilos, this app is made for that. It only does food tracking.
The other apps do too much#
That’s another thing that bothered me with all the other apps: they all try to do too much at the same time. Maybe that’s to justify the price tag. The app needs to feel busy. It has to do more than just food tracking, because why would anyone pay just for food tracking? I get it. It’s on my mind too.
But for me, the best thing about this app is its simplicity. Simplicity in the interface, in the experience, in the way you just add a meal and nothing more. It doesn’t try to overcomplicate. It doesn’t try to overwhelm you with a confusing interface. It just does what it says on the label. You take a photo of your food. It tracks it.
Live on iPhone and Android#
The first version of Snapkin is now live in the App Store and on Google Play. Work on it is ongoing, and new versions should come out every few days. It’s free for 3 days, then €9.99 a month or €99.99 a year, and it speaks 10 languages. I hope you give it a try. 🙏
Let me know what works and what doesn’t. Any feedback is welcome, pros and cons, good and bad.