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Using your phone's camera

The phone in your pocket is the best camera in the kitchen. Pantry Raider uses it the simple way: you open the app in your phone's browser and point the camera at things. There is no app to install and nothing to pair.

Getting the app onto your phone

You do not have to type an address. Anywhere in the app, tap the phone QR code button in the navigation bar, or Open on phone on the Manage Pantry page. A code appears with the caption "Scan with your phone to add items". Point your phone's camera at it and follow the link.

The code carries your kitchen's address on your own network, so your phone needs to be on the same wifi. If you have remote access turned on, you can set the code to hand out your public address instead, and then it works from anywhere. That switch is in Settings, under the QR code options.

The page it opens is the same Manage Pantry page you see on a computer, laid out for a phone. Along the top are the four things a scan can do: Stock up, Use stock, Shopping list, and Audit. Picking one here changes it everywhere, including the counter scanner and the kitchen display, so everyone in the house stays in step.

Scanning barcodes

Under Stock up (or any of the other modes), the Barcode tab gives you two ways to scan.

Start Camera opens a full-screen live view that stays open between scans, so you can work through a pile of groceries without tapping Start for each one. Hold a barcode in the frame and it reads it as soon as it focuses. A barcode held in view counts once; move it away and back to scan the same item again. Close the camera with the cross when you are done. It handles the usual grocery codes (EAN-13, EAN-8, UPC-A, UPC-E) plus Code 128, Code 39, and QR codes. Phones cannot focus much closer than about four inches, so hold the package a little further back than feels natural and let it settle.

A recognized barcode gives a green pulse and a 150 ms vibration where supported. The scanner has separate sound and vibration toggles: sound starts off and vibration starts on, and your choices are remembered in this browser. The flashlight control appears once the camera starts. If the browser or camera does not support a control, it shows a crossed-out icon and Not supported, rather than looking switched off or disappearing. Recognition feedback means the barcode was read; the save and product-lookup results appear separately in the scanner's toasts.

Snap Barcode Photo takes a single picture with your normal camera app and reads the code from that. It is slower by a beat, but it always works, and it is the one to use if Start Camera is not offered (see below).

There is also a box to type a barcode by hand when the label is scuffed.

Every scan turns the number into a name by checking your own Grocy products first, then the barcode fixes other Pantry Raider kitchens agreed on (a copy ships with each release), and then the community Open Food Facts database. Only the Open Food Facts lookup needs the internet; the scan itself does not. If you are offline and a product is new to you, type the name in and everything else works the same.

Photographing groceries and receipts

With an AI provider set up, the Photo / Receipt tab is where the phone really earns its place.

  • Food. Photograph a pile of groceries on the counter and every item in the shot is queued for you to review and confirm, names, brands, quantities, and any printed best-by date included. One photo beats twenty rows of typing.
  • Receipt. Photograph the receipt and the items come off it the same way.

Reading a photo takes a minute or two, so you are free to put the phone down and walk away. When it finishes, the results are waiting for you, with a note in your review inbox and a quick message on the kitchen display.

Two more places take a photo straight from your phone:

  • Shopping, Add receipt matches the prices you actually paid to the items in your pantry, so Grocy's price history reflects real money.
  • Recipes, import from a photo reads a recipe off a cookbook page or a handwritten card.

If you have not set up an AI provider, these tabs are hidden rather than offered and broken. Barcode scanning and manual entry work regardless.

If Start Camera is missing

Browsers only hand out live camera access to pages served over HTTPS (or running on the same machine). On a plain http:// address on your own network, your phone's browser will not allow a live camera view, so the app hides Start Camera and shows a note pointing you at Snap Barcode Photo instead.

That fallback is not a downgrade in what you can do. It uses your phone's normal camera app, which is allowed over plain HTTP, and it reads the same codes. Photo and receipt import work over plain HTTP too, for the same reason.

If you want the live view, give the app an HTTPS address. There are three ways:

  • Turn on remote access, which publishes your kitchen over HTTPS with a real certificate and no router setup.
  • Put a reverse proxy in front of it (Caddy, nginx, Traefik, Pangolin) and let it handle certificates. See the HTTPS section of Platforms and deployment. A proxy needs a password on the kitchen, and signing in through it needs two-factor, even when the proxy runs on the same machine: it shows the sign-in page like any visitor from outside. Turn on two-factor in Settings, Security from the plain home address (for example http://pr.local:9284) before you rely on the proxy.
  • Use a self-signed certificate on your LAN. It works, but every browser in the house will warn about it once.

On the kitchen display

A kiosk screen hides the camera controls on purpose. A wall-mounted panel has no useful camera, and a countertop barcode reader is faster than any phone. The page says so, and offers Open on phone so you can hand the job to the device that is actually good at it.