Point and Shoot: 6 Google Lens Useful Tricks You Should Know

Ever find yourself being clueless about the brand of your friend’s shoes or a colleague’s cool tank top? The first thing you’ll probably do is feed Google with random keywords trying to find that item. Save yourself from the hassle! There’s an app that lets you explore the physical world digitally.
One of the most innovative AI-powered technology launched by Google back in 2017 is Google Lens. Armed with your smartphone, you can use this technology and effortlessly snap a photo of anything and it will identify or provide further information about that certain item.
Along with the release of Google Pixel, this cutting-edge app functions as a deep machine learning scanner that can detect any object and text in front of your camera.
This tech is available to all smartphone devices, except Huawei. So, grab your gadgets and install this “magical” app now as we bring you a list of some items that Google Lens can fetch to help you save tons of time and effort.
Food and Beverage
One Google Lens useful trick you may want to use over and over is the information details from any restaurants, cafés, and bars. This trick allows you to check the establishment’s opening hours, customer reviews, and relevant suggestions of various foods and drinks to see how to make and where to get them.

Homework Questions
It can provide students the answers to some confusing homework questions. Simple scan the question and Google will show the possible answer to that specific problem.

Listen to the Document
The “Listen” option is another Google Lens useful trick to help you read a long letter or memo by listening instead of actually reading the document. Just point your phone to the paper and tap the listen option at the bottom of the screen for the app to read the text out loud.

Scan SSID Sticker, Barcodes, and QR Codes
Another Google Lens useful trick is to read the SSID sticker located on the back of your Wi-Fi router. It allows you to automatically connect without the need of typing the Wi-Fi password.
This is also helpful when scanning QR codes for online payments and COVID-19 contract tracing among establishments.

Translate Text and Smart Text Selection
The translation feature is a very useful trick of Google Lens. The app can help you decipher texts or languages from a physical document even offline. It can also detect and select text like addresses or phone numbers, allowing you to copy or paste it onto your device’s clipboard. To do that, simply click the document icon and capture the text on a paper, book, or whiteboard.
You’d be amazed to know that Lens can also copy the text on another computer’s clipboard using the “Copy to computer” option with the same Google account.
Shopping
One of the most useful tricks of Google Lens is for shopping. Snapping a photo of the dress you want to buy will let you see similar clothing or styles along with reviews in some cases.

Subscribe to The Beat's newsletter to receive compelling, curated content straight to your inbox! You can also create an account with us for free to start bookmarking articles for later reading.