Android Authority highlights everyday uses for Lens that it calls “surprisingly useful.”
Android Authority’s roundup covers seven ways to use Google Lens beyond basic search, with a focus on everyday use cases.
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Google Lens can do more than identify a plant or translate a sign. Its camera search, optical character recognition and Gemini follow-ups also make it useful for small problems that are awkward to describe in a text query.
Android Authority's Yash Wate highlights seven uses he has tried: identifying an unfamiliar product and finding sellers, decoding laundry-care symbols, explaining dashboard lights, troubleshooting device error codes, interpreting food labels, identifying a dish and suggesting a recipe, and copying text from physical objects.
Several of those tasks work better when the first image is only the beginning. If Lens cannot identify a dashboard symbol, adding the vehicle's make and model can narrow the result. A photographed computer error can lead to an explanation and follow-up troubleshooting through Gemini. Product searches can similarly benefit from a description of where an obscure part came from.
The text tool is more direct. Lens can select writing on a storefront, pamphlet or billboard, then copy, translate or read it aloud. Recognized phone numbers and email addresses can also become call, text or email actions without manual retyping.
The article's examples also show the limits of visual AI. Wate warns that Lens may misidentify lesser-known dishes or regional food, and ambiguous symbols can require more context. Nutrition and allergy questions are especially poor places to rely on an image-generated answer alone.
Lens is most useful here as a fast way to turn something visible into searchable text and possible next steps. A safety warning, medical concern or expensive purchase still deserves confirmation from the product manual, manufacturer or an appropriate professional.
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