Never Lose a Discovery: Introducing Offline Mode

Never Lose a Discovery: Introducing Offline Mode

We have all been there. You are on a hike deep in the woods or exploring a park with spotty reception when you find a fascinating new plant. You take out your phone to scan it, only to be stopped by a lack of an internet connection. With our new Offline Mode, a weak signal will never get in the way of your curiosity again.

This feature is designed for those moments of discovery, wherever they happen. Whether you are traveling, conserving mobile data, or simply venturing off the beaten path, you can continue to capture and document the plants you find. Your scientific journey no longer needs to pause when your connection does.

How It Works

Using the new Offline Mode is simple and integrated directly into the scanning process.

1. Scan Anytime, Anywhere When you open the camera to scan a plant and your device is offline, Hemlock will automatically understand the situation. Take your photo as you normally would. The app will securely save your picture along with the time and GPS coordinates of your discovery.

2. Find Your Saved Drafts All of your offline scans are saved as Drafts. You can find them in a new "Drafts" section of the app Settings. Here you will see a list of all the plants you have captured while offline, waiting for you to come back online.

3. Submit When You're Ready Once you have a stable internet connection again, just navigate to your Drafts. You can review each saved scan and tap "Submit" to send it for identification. The app will then process your scan just as if you had taken it while online, either verifying it instantly or sending it to the Feed for community review.

Our goal with Hemlock is to encourage exploration and make contributing to citizen science as easy as possible. We hope this new feature empowers you to venture even further. Go discover what is out there, and happy scanning!