Sharing My Journey: A software engineer’s attempt at building the best food tracking app.

Hey, I'm Forat, a software engineer, and I'm not here to sell you anything.

Around 8 months ago, I decided it was time to shed some pounds and started tracking my calories. The problem? Existing calorie counting apps just didn't cut it for me. So, being a tech guru, I thought, why not build my own?

One of my biggest struggles for me was the language barrier. While I speak English, I don't know the names of all foods in English. That's when the light bulb went off—I should translate everything! I've gathered a whopping 3 million foods from all around the world, and translated every name, nutritional info, and ingredients list into 40 languages. It took me 240 million total translations, but hey, who's counting?

“Centa” is the result of those late nights of coding and translating. No fancy marketing talk here; it's just a simple, completely free and highly customizable app that I hope can genuinely add something to your life.

Features:

1. Free, for real:

   • There are no trials, no ads, no tricks, no BS.
   • I’m simply not focusing on making any money from this project at this point.

2. Massive Database:

   • Over 3 million foods, every one of them translated into 40 languages.

3. Easy Tracking:

   • Barcode scan for instant food recognition.
   • Quick-Add feature for easy manual entry. (only needs a name)

4. Highly Customizable:

   • I hate apps full of un-important and overwhelming data and charts. Centa’s dashboard is made of widgets that can be toggled and reordered, because, seriously, it's about making it yours and seeing only what you care about.
   • App interface available in 11 languages. (You can search for food in 40 languages)
   • Community support needed to translate the app interface into more languages (I don’t have money to hire professional translators).

Upcoming Features: (Planned for March 2024)

1. AI-Powered allergy and food preference detector:

   • Already finished PoC and visuals, and I’m super excited about this one:
   • You select your food preferences / allergies when setting up the app. Then, everytime you’re logging a food, the app will automatically use AI to analyze the food’s name, nutrition info and ingredients, and give you a heads-up if it doesn’t fit you.
   • Other apps simply rely on users labeling foods as vegan, halal, etc. I don't know of any other app that is using AI to analyze the food and make a decision, AFAIK.
   • Planning to support: Vegetarian, Vegan, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Egg-Free, Alcohol-Free, Gluten-Free & Lactose Free.

2. Not a Yet-Another Water Tracker:

   • How? It’s gonna be the only app that can find water content from foods and beverages you eat/drink (using AI of course), and add it to the water tracker automatically.
   • For example: an apple is %86 water, logging one apple of 100g will automatically add 86 ml of water to the app’s water tracker too.
   • I find this to be very useful for professional athletes and people with certain diseases.
   • PoC built & tested, working on design.

3. Create Your Own Foods, combine foods to create a dish, more widgets and cutomizations and so on..

App Availability:

• iOS version is live on the AppStore, get via https://centa.world/download
• Android version is ready but it needs at least 20 volunteers to test it for 2-3 weeks before it can go live on the Play Store (Google’s Policy). If you're interested in being part of the testing community, join at https://centa.world/android.

Helps needed:

• iOS: seeking feedback on how to improve the app.
• Android: 20 testers, and mentioned above.
• Translation: while you can search in 40 languages, app UI is only available in 11, if you can help translate the app to you mother tongue, I'd really appreciate it. You an also help verify that current translations sound natural.

So, if you've ever struggled with existing apps, or if you're just curious about what a software engineer's passion project looks like, give Centa a try. It's been a work of love, and I hope it serves you well. Cheers!

Let me know what you think about it, I'm actively seeking feedbacks. Thanks!