PlateLens gives you several ways to capture the same kind of diary entry. Choose the method that is quickest for the food in front of you and set the date and time to when you actually ate—not when you happened to open the app. When analysis finishes, review the result and correct it if needed.
Choose how to log
Photo: take a picture or choose one from your library on mobile. On the web, upload, drag, paste or capture an image.
Written description: choose Enter Manually and describe the meal in ordinary words, such as “two eggs, toast and coffee.” This is a description sent for analysis, not a food-database search.
Voice: speak the meal instead of typing it.
Barcode: scan a packaged product and confirm how many servings, or how much of the package, you had.
Saved & Recent: repeat something you already logged, adjust its portion, or customize that one occurrence.
These methods are available in the mobile and web apps. On Apple Watch, you can speak a meal or repeat a saved or recent meal; photo and barcode capture stay on the phone or web.
Set the date and meal time before logging
When you start from Today, an untouched meal time means Now. PlateLens resolves it at the action that establishes the meal occurrence, not when you first opened the screen. On mobile, that is the photo shutter, barcode scan, start of a voice recording, or the final confirmation for text and saved or recent meals. On web, photo, text and barcode use the final Add or submit action, while voice uses the start of the recording. If an untouched Today flow stays open across midnight, Now follows the new day; a past day or a time you chose explicitly does not move.
When you start from a specific past day in Diary, PlateLens keeps that day as the logging context. Date & meal time shows the past date together with a suggested clock time instead of presenting the entry as Today. Tap the field to change either the date or the time.
Mobile: Today displays Now. From a past day, the + flow lets you use the Diary day or Today. After you choose the Diary day, its explicit date and suggested time stay visible for photo, text, voice, and Saved & Recent meal capture. A barcode freezes the time when it is scanned, then shows that date and time in the product confirmation—or in the name fallback when the code is unknown—so you can review or edit it before anything is logged. If you leave a historical suggestion untouched, that exact displayed value is saved.
Web: the date and time remain visible and editable. The global +, Log link and command palette inherit the day open in Diary. On a past day, the concrete suggestion shown on screen is frozen and saved exactly, including when you switch between photo, text, saved, barcode or voice. Today alone keeps Now dynamic until the final logging gesture.
Apple Watch: the watch has no historical Diary date picker. A meal logged from the watch uses the time of the logging gesture; choose a different date or time later from the phone or web app.
If you are entering a meal later, review the proposed date and time before submitting. Quick choices for 30 minutes ago and 1 hour ago are also available. When you choose a specific clock time, PlateLens keeps the suggested eating occasion aligned with it until you choose Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or Snack yourself; a manual choice is preserved.
A confirmed meal time cannot be more than five minutes in the future. A future diary day is treated as a plan, so PlateLens saves no “eaten at” time until the meal has actually happened.
Edit the time after logging
Open the entry from Today or Diary and open its editing controls (Edit Meal on mobile) to change its date or meal time. You can also add a meal time to any entry that does not have one. Saving updates the whole meal event together, including dishes created from the same capture; it does not create a second meal.
Changing meal time does not re-run the nutrition analysis. Portion and ingredient changes are separate; see editing portions and fixing meals.
Meals with no confirmed time
A meal without a confirmed time remains valid and unconfirmed. The surfaces make that distinction in slightly different ways:
Web: editing shows Meal time not set, the separate audit value Logged at, and Add meal time.
Mobile: the meal shows Meal time not set. When you edit it, the logged timestamp may be used privately as the picker’s starting suggestion, but it does not become a confirmed meal time unless you save it.
Apple Watch: the detail can show Recorded at as context while keeping the meal unconfirmed. Add or change the real time from the phone or web app.
The audit timestamp records when PlateLens received the entry. None of these surfaces silently treats it as the time you ate.
Time zones, travel and daylight saving time
PlateLens stores the meal’s clock time with its IANA time zone. New entries start in the device’s current zone. If you travel later, a meal recorded at 8:00 AM in New York stays 8:00 AM New York time instead of shifting to the new device zone.
Web: you can choose an IANA time zone or switch explicitly to the current zone.
Mobile: an existing meal keeps its original zone. Use current time zone changes it to the device’s current zone; mobile does not provide the web’s full IANA-zone chooser.
Apple Watch: logging uses the watch’s current zone and displays the saved original zone. Time-zone editing stays on phone or web.
Automatic historical suggestions avoid daylight-saving times that are missing or ambiguous by choosing a valid, unambiguous time instead. If you manually choose a clock time that occurs twice on the fall-back day, PlateLens asks you to select the earlier or later occurrence. A time inside the spring-forward gap is rejected so the record cannot point to an impossible instant.
Where the time is used
Today and Diary: the confirmed local time appears with the meal, and meals are ordered by their recorded occurrence. Entries without a confirmed time stay clearly marked rather than receiving an invented time.
Weekly and monthly PDF reports: Meal Timing summarizes only confirmed meal events, including typical first and last meal and eating window when enough data exists. The optional Include Detailed Meal Diary table is off by default; when included, entries without a confirmed time read Time not set.
Apple Watch: a meal logged on the watch uses the time of the logging gesture and the watch displays confirmed times in their original zone. Entries without a confirmed time remain unconfirmed. To choose or change a time, use the phone or web app.
Apple Health (HealthKit) and Health Connect: with health write permission, PlateLens uses the confirmed meal instant for nutrition records when available. An entry without one may use its compatible logged time or a stable time on the diary day for health-store placement; that fallback does not turn into a confirmed meal time inside PlateLens. Edits are reconciled to avoid leaving an old copy behind.
Planning future meals
You can place a meal on a future Diary date for planning, but PlateLens deliberately leaves its meal time unset. A planned clock time is not evidence that the meal was eaten. Once that diary date arrives or has passed, edit the entry to record the actual time.