Seeing AI vs Envision AI
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Seeing AI
This free app uses AI to narrate the visual world for individuals who are blind or have low vision. It describes people, text, and objects, assisting with daily tasks like reading documents, identifying products, and recognizing faces.
- Read text and documents
- Describe photos and objects
- Scan product barcodes
- Recognize people and currency
- Identify personal objects
- Augmented reality environment exploration
- Identify colors and light levels
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Seeing AI is a free app that narrates the world around you. Designed with and for the blind and low vision community, this ongoing research project harnesses the power of AI to open up the visual world by describing nearby people, text and objects. Seeing AI provides tools to assist with a variety of daily tasks: • Read - Hear text as soon as it appears in front of the camera. Document alignment provides audio cues to capture a printed page and recognize the text along with its original formatting. Ask Seeing AI about the contents to easily find the information you need. • Describe - Take photos to hear a rich description. Ask questions to focus on the information you care about. Explore photos by moving your finger over the screen to hear the location of different objects. • Products - Scan barcodes and Accessible QR codes using audio beeps to guide you; hear the product name and package information when available. • People - Save photos of friends and coworkers so you can recognize them later. Get an estimate of their age, gender, and expression. • Currency - Recognize currency notes. • Find My Things - Teach Seeing AI to recognize your personal objects and follow the audio cues to find them later. • World - An Audio Augmented Reality experience to explore an unfamiliar environment, including hearing objects announced around you with Spatial Audio (requires a device with a LiDAR, and iOS 14+). • Colors - Identify colors. • Light - Hear an audible tone corresponding to the brightness of your surroundings. • Photos and Videos in other apps - Just tap “Share” and “Recognize with Seeing AI” to describe media from Mail, Photos, WhatsApp, and more. • Browse Photos - Hear descriptions of photos and videos saved on your device. Seeing AI continues to evolve as we hear from the community, and AI research advances. Visit http://SeeingAI.com for more details. Questions, feedback or feature requests? Email us at SeeingAI@Microsoft.com.
Envision AI
This app uses AI and OCR to read text, describe surroundings, and identify objects for users who are blind or have low vision. It offers features like instant text reading in multiple languages, document scanning, scene description, and object detection to promote independence.
- Instant text reading in 60+ languages
- Audio-guided document scanning
- Scene and object description
- Barcode scanning for product info
- People and object detection
- Image and PDF description
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Envision is the fastest, most reliable and award-winning OCR app that speaks out the visual world, helping people who are blind or have low vision lead more independent lives. Envision is developed for and together with the blind and low vision community. The app is simple, gets things done and brings the best assistive experience to blind and low vision users. Simply use your phone camera to scan any piece of text, your surroundings, objects, people or products and everything will be read out to you thanks to Envision’s smart artificial intelligence (AI) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR). _____________________ What Envision users say about the app: “Easy going text recognition. Text recognition is outstanding. Good for independence. Ease of use is immaculate” - Noahis from Australia “Amazing. I love it. I'm blind and I love how easy it is to use. Amazing job!!!!” - Matt from Canada ___________________ With full talkback support, Envision enables you to: Read all kinds of text: • Instantly read any piece of text in over 60 different languages. • Easily scan your paper documents (single or multiple pages) with the help of audio-guided edge detection. All content is spoken back to you and is ready for export and edit. • Import PDFs and images to get a description of the image and recognition of all the text within it. • Quickly read handwritten postcards, letters, lists and other paperwork. Know what's around you: • Effortlessly describe visual scenes around you. • Detect colour on your clothes, walls, books, you name it. • Swiftly scan barcodes to get extensive information about the products. Find what you're looking for: • Find people around you; the names of your family and friends are spoken out whenever they are in the frame. • Find objects around you; selecting common objects from the in-app list to find them. Share: • Share images or documents from your phone or other apps like Twitter or WhatsApp by selecting Envision from the share sheet. Envision can then read and describe those images for you. ___________________ Feedback, questions or feature requests? We welcome everyone to provide their feedback about the Envision app, as we’re constantly improving. Please email us at support@LetsEnvision.com. ___________________ Please read our Terms of Use & Privacy Policy: https://www.LetsEnvision.com/terms If you're still reading all the way down here, we'd like to thank you for your diligence, attention to detail and general commitment to finishing something that you started. Just like all the team working at Envision!
Screenshots
Verdict
Seeing AI and Envision AI both sit at 4.3 stars, but that hides the real split: 69% of Seeing AI's written reviews are positive against 58% of Envision AI's. On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.3 for Seeing AI against 4.2 for Envision AI. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 633 and 595 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 69% of Seeing AI's written reviews are positive against 58% of Envision AI's.
Seeing AI ships an update every 2 months, Envision AI every 5 weeks. Both last shipped on November 3, 2026.
| Parameter | Seeing AI | Envision AI |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (633 ratings) — better | 4.2 (595 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 68.6% of reviews — better | 58.1% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 633 — better | 595 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 5 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 16.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 309 MB | 373 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Microsoft Corporation | Envision Technologies B.V. |
Customer experience
Seeing AI
Envision AI
User reviews
Seeing AI
From 633 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Helpful for visually impaired users
- 🚀 Accurate text and document recognition
- 🚀 Useful for reading labels, mail, and other text
- 👍 Comprehensive set of features in one app
- 👍 Life-changing for some users
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes or becomes unusable after updates
- 🐛 Inconsistent performance in scanning barcodes and recognizing colors
- 🐛 Facial recognition not very accurate
- 🔒 Privacy concerns with facial recognition
- 👎 Difficult to navigate for blind users due to small buttons
Envision AI
From 595 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Fast and accurate text recognition
- 🔍 Excellent object and scene description
- 👍 Helpful for independence and accessibility
- 🔍 Accurate barcode and color recognition
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional crashes and stability issues
- 🔋 High battery consumption
- 💰 Expensive subscription model
- 🌐 Limited language support
Bugs and requests
Seeing AI
Reported bugs
3 issues- Barcode scanning not working consistently
- Document reader sometimes fails to load or process documents
- Frequent crashes or app becoming unresponsive
Requested features
6 requests- Add support for more languages, including Arabic and Chinese
- Improve accuracy of color and facial recognition
- Allow users to read digital displays like clocks and appliances
- Integrate with screen readers like VoiceOver for better accessibility
- Add an offline mode for using the app without an internet connection
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- Provide more customization options for voice settings
Envision AI
Reported bugs
4 issues- Instant text reader mixes languages and has poor formatting
- Document scanning sometimes fails to detect document edges
- Facial recognition often misidentifies people
- Barcode scanner not working reliably in latest version
Requested features
4 requests- Add support for more languages, including Punjabi and Gujarati
- Improve handwriting recognition accuracy
- Implement offline mode for text recognition
- Add a feature to save and organize recognized text
In-app purchases
Seeing AI
No in-app purchases
Envision AI
No in-app purchases







