Hobbs and tacho photos

What it is

On the Log Flight screen, both the Start and End meter fields have a camera button next to them. Tap it, take a photo of the Hobbs or tacho meter, and Syndik8 runs on-device OCR on the image to read the number and fill the field for you. You can always override the auto-filled value — the field is a plain text input with the OCR-read number already populated.

The End photo is persisted with the log as evidence. The Start photo is a workflow aid — it is held in memory during the log entry to help you double-check your reading, but it is not saved against the log.

Who can use it

The pilot logging the flight uses the camera button.
The pilot (as uploader) can always see the End photo.
Admins and owners can always see the End photo.
Other members can see the End photo only if the syndicate’s photo-sharing setting is on. See Usage photo privacy.

Where to find it

Log Flight screen — camera buttons next to both Start and End meter fields.
Booking detail — usage-log entries show the End-photo thumbnail when the current member is allowed to see it.
Asset Usage history — same gating as the booking detail.

Fields / options

Field	Type	Required	Notes
Start meter photo	JPEG / PNG / WebP	No	Workflow aid, held in memory during log entry, not persisted. Camera button runs OCR and fills the Start field.
End meter photo	JPEG / PNG / WebP	No	Persisted with the log. Camera button runs OCR and fills the End field.

How OCR works

OCR runs entirely on the device — the image never leaves your phone for recognition.

iOS: Apple Vision (VNRecognizeTextRequest), built into the operating system since iOS 13. No third-party SDK is shipped.
Android: Google ML Kit on-device text recognition (com.google.mlkit:text-recognition).
Web: the camera button is rendered, but OCR is a no-op — the image is captured and shown in the form, no number is extracted. Type the meter value manually if you are logging from desktop.

After the platform OCR returns the recognised text blocks, Syndik8 runs a small four-phase extractor that picks the Hobbs reading out of the noise. Hobbs meters always have either 5 or 6 drums, with the last 1–2 drums representing the decimal portion (tenths or hundredths) — but the colour-inversion boundary that signals the decimal on the physical instrument is invisible to OCR. The extractor reconstructs the reading like this:

Slash normalisation. Apple Vision sometimes interprets the colour-inversion boundary as a / character — for example reading 2203.5 as 2203/5. The extractor merges any digit/digit pair whose combined length is exactly 5 or 6 back into a single digit run before further matching.
Explicit decimal. If the OCR text already contains a dotted reading like 2203.5 or 22030.45, the extractor picks it up directly. Only 4–5 integer digits qualify, so short fractions on other instrument faces (999.9) are ignored.
5- or 6-digit standalone group. If no explicit decimal is found, the extractor looks for an isolated run of exactly 5 or 6 digits. The last digit (5-drum) or last two digits (6-drum) are interpreted as the decimal portion: 22035 → 2203.5, 220345 → 2203.45. Shorter groups (RPM scale markings) and longer groups (serial numbers, barcodes) are rejected.
7-digit fallback. Apple Vision occasionally prepends a stray digit by misreading a nearby instrument edge as a 1. As a last resort the extractor drops the leading digit of any 7-digit run and re-applies the 6-drum rule (1222030 → 222030 → 2220.30).

If none of the four phases produces a reading, the OCR pass returns nothing and the meter field is left for you to type manually.

Behaviour rules

OCR is best-effort, not required. If the image is unclear, the drum boundary lies across a digit, or none of the four extraction phases finds a confident number, the field is left as-is — you type the number manually.
You can always override the auto-filled number. The field remains editable after OCR fills it. Type over the value if the reading is wrong.
You can save the log without using the camera at all. Typing the meter value directly is the manual happy path. Photos are never required by the system; individual syndicates may ask for them as a matter of policy but the app does not enforce that.
Private storage. End-meter photos live in a private bucket. The app generates a signed URL (15-minute validity) when a viewer is allowed to see the image. Direct links cannot be shared — the URL expires.
Accepted formats and size. JPEG, PNG, and WebP are accepted. The upload pipeline downscales the captured image to 1200×1200 with 70% JPEG quality before sending it to storage; the hard server-side limit is 10 MB.