[Feature request] Tap to focus

[ajgelado]

I use Binary Eye in several devices. In two of them, including the one I use daily, Binary Eye starts with the camera in hyper-focal (the longest focus distance, which includes infinite but not the nearer objects), and there is no way to make it focus nearer. In both cases, the 3rd-party camera pp I use (Simple Camera) allows manual focus by tapping, so I know the hardware is capable of that.

This prevents reading small QRs, specially if they are high density, because you can't scan them from too far away (because the camera can't resolve enough detail), nor can you scan them by getting closer (because the camera won't focus). It is a problem because most European countries now make you include QRs in all invoices, with a high density of data and a limited size, and those QRs are basically unreadable with Binary Eye in some devices.

My request is simple: allowing tap to focus, or at least some kind of macro mode. What I don't know is if this will be possible using the legacy Camera API, or is one of those things that will have to wait until the switch to Camera2.

[ajgelado]

Seems like tap-to-focus works in v1.72.1. Interestingly, there is no mention in the changelog of anything like this. The closest is "Fix camera initialization" in v1.72.0. Can this be a side effect?

I'll keep testing this release, and if it works as expected, I'll close this as completed.

[markusfisch]

Thanks for reporting this! That's a bit surprising indeed, as the changes in 1.72.1 were completely unrelated 🤔 May be still a side-effect.

One thing to note is that the app supports tap to focus for years, even with the old Camera API. But depending on the camera driver, that may have been hard to notice, or even completely broken. A good test is to focus something very close to the camera and then tap something in the distance, without moving the camera too much.