When you add yarn, the camera icon lets you photograph the label instead of typing. Choose Take Photo, or Choose from Library if you already snapped it in the shop.
What it does
Two things, both useful:
- It reads the text on the label and uses it to search Ravelry’s yarn database. Pick the match and all the details — weight, fibre, length per skein, gauge — come with it.
- It keeps the photo and attaches it to the stash entry, so your stash shows the actual ball band rather than a stock picture.
The reading happens on your phone
The text recognition is done on your device, by iOS itself. The photo isn’t uploaded anywhere to be read, and it doesn’t need an internet connection to be read — the same machinery that lets you select text in a photo in the Photos app.
What does leave your phone is the search: once the label has been read, the words it found are sent to Ravelry to look the yarn up, exactly as if you had typed them. Just the words, not the picture.
The photo itself stays with you. It’s saved to the stash entry and travels to your other devices through your own private iCloud, like everything else you add — Yarn Squirrel doesn’t upload it to Ravelry.
What it doesn’t do
It doesn’t read the numbers off the label. The grams, the metres, the needle size printed on the band are not pulled out of the photo — they come from Ravelry once you’ve picked the yarn, or from you if you type them in.
So a successful scan is one that finds the right yarn in the database. It isn’t a substitute for the database.
Getting a good scan
- Get the brand and the yarn name in frame — that’s what the search needs
- Flatten the band if you can; text curving round a ball is harder to read
- Good light, no flash glare across the print
If it doesn’t find it
You’ll get the no-results message, and your photo is still kept. Switch to the Manual tab and type the yarn in — the picture you just took comes along with it, so the effort isn’t wasted.
That’s the expected outcome for indie dyers and small-batch yarn, which often simply isn’t in Ravelry’s database.