PlateLens on the web: your food diary on a real keyboard
PlateLens now runs in a browser at app.platelens.app. Same account, same diary, same numbers — on a screen big enough to see a month at once and a keyboard fast enough to describe a meal in the time it takes to type it. One thing it deliberately will not do: create your account.
Why put a calorie tracker in a browser at all
Because a phone is the right tool for exactly half of this. Photographing a plate is a phone job — the camera is there, the meal is there. But the other half of food tracking is not capture, it is review: fixing an estimate that came out wrong, filling in yesterday, reading a week, checking whether a pattern is real. All of that is reading and typing, and a laptop beats a thumb at both.
It also matters where people already are. A lot of eating happens at a desk, next to a machine that is already open and already signed in. Logging lunch there should not require picking up a second device.
What you can do in the browser
This is not a cut-down companion that only shows totals. The web carries the working parts of the product:
| Area | What it does |
|---|---|
| Log | Photo upload, typed description, voice, barcode, water and weight — the same four ways of describing a meal you have on the phone |
| Today & Diary | The day's meals and totals, and a diary you can walk backwards through by week and month |
| Meal detail | Open any logged meal, inspect the ingredients and portions the estimate was built from, and correct them |
| Balance | Calories in against calories out, by day, week and month — the energy view in full |
| Coach | The same AI coach, with your diary as context, in a window you can actually read a long answer in |
| Library | Saved and repeated meals, so a regular breakfast is one click rather than a re-description |
| Progress & Reports | Weight trend, progress photos, and longer-range reporting where a wide screen genuinely helps |
| Targets & Settings | Your calorie and macro targets, units, and subscription status |
| League & Friends | Streaks, standings and friends, for the people who use them |
You sign in with the same Google or Apple account you already use on the phone. There is no separate web password, no second identity and no export/import step: it is one account reading one diary.
The one thing it will not do: sign you up
If you have never used PlateLens, the browser will not create your account. Sign in with a brand-new Google or Apple identity and the web signs you straight back out and points you at the app.
That is a decision, not a gap. Setting up PlateLens computes a plan for you — your targets come out of your profile, your goal and your starting point — and an account that exists without one is an account with nothing to render: a diary with no targets to compare against and a Balance view with no plan. Leaving a half-built session open would invite you to wander around an app that cannot answer anything yet. So the web refuses to build on a credential it just said it would not use, and onboarding stays where it works.
New to PlateLens? Start on the App Store or Google Play, finish setup once, and the browser will recognise you the moment you sign in.
Where the web is stricter than the phone — on purpose
Building a second client meant asking the same account the same question twice, and in a handful of places the two answers differed. Each one was settled rather than papered over, and the web took the stricter reading every time:
- Today is never given a verdict. A day that is 45% eaten at 15:00 is not "under target", it is unfinished. The web shows it and declines to judge it.
- A day whose only entry was an abandoned scan does not count as logged. Cancelled and pending scans come back as zero-calorie entries; counting them inflates your logged days, drags your averages down and can extend a streak nobody earned.
- When a day's recorded target is missing, no target is drawn. Substituting today's goal into last month's chart redraws an 1,800 kcal week around a 2,200 kcal plan — band included — and turns "every day came in under target" into a sentence that is simply false. Loading, missing and failed are three states, and none of them is a number.
- Partial days stay out of averages rather than quietly dragging a week down.
None of that is visible as a feature. It is the difference between a chart that is decorative and one you can act on.
What it costs
Nothing extra. The web is part of the same account and the same plan — there is no separate web subscription and no desktop tier. What the free plan includes, and what upgrading changes, is on the pricing page.
Getting started in three steps
- Open app.platelens.app on any modern browser — laptop, desktop or tablet.
- Sign in with the Google or Apple account you use on your phone.
- Your diary is already there. Nothing to import, nothing to sync, nothing to set up twice.
Open your diary in a browser
Same account, same data, bigger screen. If you already have PlateLens on your phone, you already have this.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a PlateLens web version?
Yes. PlateLens runs in the browser at app.platelens.app. It uses the same account and the same diary as the phone app, with logging, the diary, Balance, the AI coach, saved meals, progress and reports.
Can I create a PlateLens account from the browser?
No, and that is deliberate. Setting up PlateLens computes your calorie and macro targets from your profile and goal, so an account created without that step would have nothing to show. Sign up in the iOS or Android app once; the browser recognises you immediately afterwards.
Does the web app cost extra?
No. It is part of the same account and the same plan — there is no separate web subscription and no desktop tier. See the pricing page for what the free plan includes.
Can I log a meal by photo from my computer?
Yes. The web accepts a photo upload, a typed description, voice, or a barcode — the same four ways of describing a meal you have on the phone.
Do my phone and browser show the same numbers?
They read the same account, and in a few places the web is deliberately stricter: it never gives an unfinished day a verdict, it does not count a day whose only entry was an abandoned scan as logged, and it draws no target for a day whose recorded target is missing rather than substituting today's goal.