
Show HN: App for my grandpa to help him read printed text (OCR+TTS) - artpi
https://www.helpmereadthis.com/
======
artpi
My grandpa (88 y/o) is pretty active, but his eyesight is very bad. He manages
to use his tablet in limited ways because some apps can make the font
enormous.

But what is really problematic is the tiny text on prescriptions, medicine
leaflets, bus stop timetable, etc. I get a call at least once a week that some
letter has come in and he cannot read it and I need to help him. (the most
annoying part is that's usually spam or some incomprehensible gov document
sent for compliance).

So I built an app for him, where he can snap a photo and it is recognized and
later read out loud to him.

Stack:

\- A Web App (full JavaScript)

\- Native camera capture

\- Google Cloud Vision for OCR

\- Web Speech API for Text-To-Speech

All Open Source, available here [https://github.com/artpi/help-me-
read](https://github.com/artpi/help-me-read) . Google Cloud Vision API is
called directly from JavaScript (if you have a token), so you don't have to
rely on my servers. PRs welcome :)

