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The Capture tab on mobile is built around a single capture ring and a four-mode picker — Voice, Photo, Video, Text. Pick a mode, capture, review, and save. Everything syncs to your desktop within seconds.
For voice, photo, and video, use Save to to choose the workspace, an existing collection, a new collection, or an existing note. When you choose a note, Bower keeps the original recording, image, or clip as an attachment to that note.

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Voice

Bower records your spoken observations and transcribes them in real time using scientific speech recognition trained on domain vocabulary. The transcript becomes an editable note, with the original recording attached.
1

Tap the ring in Voice mode

A full-screen recording view opens with a live waveform and timer. You can pause and resume.
2

Speak your observation

Bird listens and transcribes in real time. Recordings can be up to 60 minutes long — long enough for a full meeting.
3

Tap stop, then review and save

Play back the recording, set a name (or let AI do it), choose a destination, and save. If you choose an existing note, Bower attaches the original audio and appends the transcript to that note. Otherwise, the transcript becomes a new note in the workspace or collection you selected.
A few things worth knowing:
  • Bower recognises scientific terminology: units, chemical names, numeric values, and Latin binomials.
  • If a value looks outside an expected range, Bird will flag it after capture — not during.
  • Accuracy improves as Bower learns your terminology and accent over time.
  • You can rate the quality of transcriptions and text extractions. Both positive and negative feedback helps us improve accuracy for scientific content.

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Photo

Point your camera at a handwritten notebook, printed document, instrument display, or sample label. Bower reads the image and extracts the text as an editable note. (This is sometimes called OCR — optical character recognition.)
1

Tap the ring in Photo mode

Take a new photo with your camera, or choose an existing image from your gallery.
2

Choose Photo note or Equipment

A toggle on the review screen lets you save it as a normal Photo note, or as Equipment — in which case Bird reads the nameplate and pre-fills make, model, and serial straight into your Equipment Register. If you got here by scanning the QR code from Add equipment on desktop, the toggle is already set to Equipment.
3

Review and save

Choose a destination and save. If you choose an existing note, Bower attaches the original image and appends the extracted text to that note. For photos taken on your phone, Bower reads the embedded EXIF data — actual capture time, GPS location, and device model — shown in the attachment panel. Tap the location to open it in Maps.

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What Bower can read

  • Printed text and tables (approximately 98% accuracy)
  • Handwritten lab notebooks
  • Instrument displays and gauges
  • Mixed handwriting and print
  • Sample storage labels
Extracted tables are inline-editable, low-confidence regions are highlighted, and everything becomes searchable immediately. Recognised equations appear as mathematical notation in the note. Diagrams and other relevant figure regions appear inline as crops from the original photo, in reading order, rather than as AI-redrawn diagrams. If Bower cannot preserve part of the layout or a crop, it flags the note for review. The original photo remains attached as the source of truth.

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Video

Record a clip up to 5 minutes. Bower preserves the original video as an attachment. Video captures are not currently transcribed.
1

Tap the ring in Video mode

Your phone’s camera opens to record a clip.
2

Review and save

Preview the clip, name it (or let AI do it), choose a destination, and save. If you choose an existing note, the video is attached to that note without changing its text.

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Text

Type or paste a note directly. Use Text mode when you want to jot something quickly without recording — it lands in your workspace the same way every other capture does.

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What happens after capture

Every capture is held safely on your device the moment you make it, so a dropped connection or an accidental refresh won’t lose it. Once saved, it syncs to your desktop workspace in real time — no manual upload — and is fully searchable, editable, and available to Bird for summarisation and retrieval.