Connect With Nature

The app does not require your email or any sort of registration information to use the app if you do not want to participate in the challenges. As a free app, the also include “opportunities” for you to sign up for purchases.  

To identify an organism using Seek, you can open the Seek Camera from any screen by clicking the camera button. The warning pop-up reminds you to stay safe when using the Seek Camera, e.g., reminding you not to trespass, harass wildlife, or eat anything you find in the wild. Then, you can point the camera at any living thing to identify it!

The app uses your general location to populate a list of plants and animals you’re likely to encounter in the area, and each plant and animal listing in the app also includes photos and useful facts.  You can then snap photos of those species as you come across them, adding them to your virtual collection in the app.

If you spot something the app hasn’t suggested, you can snap a photo of that, too, and Seek will try to identify it for you. It’s useful, say, if a bird has flown off course from its typical migration route, so it’s not something you’d normally find in your neck of the woods. Seek uses image recognition to check whether a critter you photograph matches the species you think it is, and according to its first few reviews, it does a fairly good job of the task.

• Best choice if you do not want to create an account or share data, or are just getting started exploring nature

• No login or account required, kid-safe

• Seek’s identification model provides an identification in real-time on screen

• This identification does not leave your device or require an internet connection to work

• Users aged 13+ or with parent’s permission can optionally log in with their iNaturalist account and post observations to iNaturalist through Seek.

• No personally identifiable information is collected from users who do not log in with their iNaturalist account.