LifeSugar, the diabetes app for counting carbs from a photo

LifeSugar is an AI diabetes diary that brings together three things that usually come separately: AI for food (it counts the carbs from a photo, from the barcode on the packet or from a search), the diary (blood glucose, insulin and exercise in the same place) and the dashboard for your doctor, who sees your diary in order and can export the period report as a PDF if you give them access. It isn't just a carb counter: what it adds is seeing what was on the plate next to your blood glucose before and after.

LifeSugar isn't a bolus calculator and it doesn't connect to sensors: it's a diary. What changes is how food goes in and what comes out of it. The carbs arrive with a photo, and your doctor and you see what was on the plate next to your blood glucose before and after. A glucose meter report doesn't show the plate.

It's for anyone who needs to keep track of their carbohydrate intake: type 1, type 2, gestational diabetes, or simply anyone who wants to keep a nutrition log. Carb counting is especially relevant in type 1 and in type 2 with insulin, but the app is useful for everyone.

We're a team of 3 engineers, one of whom has type 1 diabetes. LifeSugar was born from a real frustration: weighing food, looking up nutrition tables and doing sums before every meal is exhausting. We wanted a tool that took on that work, with the result always in view so you can adjust it.

The AI identifies the foods visible in the image, estimates the approximate weight of each one and combines that with verified nutritional information to calculate the total carbs on the plate. No scales and no nutrition tables.

Yes. LifeSugar shows carbs in grams and also in portions. One portion is 10 g of carbs by default, the usual convention in Spain; if your care team uses a different figure, you can change it from 5 to 20 g in Settings. That's also where you choose whether to see them in portions or in grams.

Not for now. LifeSugar gives you the carbs and portions on the plate; you work out the insulin bolus with your healthcare team. Using your ratio to suggest boluses is on our roadmap, but until we have every clinical safety guarantee we prefer not to include it.

Yes, it can estimate home-cooked dishes and meals with several ingredients. Accuracy depends on how visible the ingredients are, the lighting and the angle of the photo. For very mixed dishes (like a dark stew) the estimate may be less accurate, but you can always adjust it manually.

According to published studies, from a photo alone the AI is off by an average of 10 to 28 g of carbs per meal, and if you give it the amount the error drops to 2–6 g. That's why in LifeSugar everything can be corrected before saving and you can tell Glucy how much you served yourself. We explain it with the sources on our blog, in “How accurate is AI at counting carbs from a photo?”.

You can always edit the results before saving them. You can correct the name, the weight and the nutritional values (carbs, sugars, protein, fat and calories), or simply tell Glucy the real amount and it redoes the sum. Over time, the AI improves with model updates.

Of course. LifeSugar includes a database of thousands of verified foods, a barcode scanner for packaged products, and manual search. The AI photo is the most convenient route, but not the only one.

The AI analysis and the barcode scanner need a connection, because the models run in the cloud. The diary, the database search and the history work offline.

Not today. You enter your blood glucose readings yourself in the diary, next to your meals and exercise. Connecting to continuous glucose monitors is on the roadmap, but doesn't have a date yet.

It organises what you log so it can be read: how each meal starts and ends (your blood glucose before and after, by time of day), what rise goes with each meal according to its carbs, the percentage of readings in your range, variability, early-morning lows, insulin per day, exercise per week, the foods you repeat most and the days you log. You see it in the web dashboard (“My data”) and, if you give access, so does your doctor. In the app you get a summary: average glucose, lows, highs, estimated HbA1c, insulin and nutrition. It doesn't suggest regimens or judge any figure.

Yes. Your doctor or nurse logs in to a web dashboard with your diary in order: adherence, blood glucose by hour and before and after each meal, carbs against the rise in blood glucose, insulin, exercise and the history entry by entry. From there they print the period report as a PDF or download it as CSV. You can export the same PDF from “My data”. The guide for professionals shows it with screenshots.

We're in the pre-launch phase. You can join the waitlist to be among the first to try it when it's available on Android.

This November, on Android. We were going to launch on 19 October and gave ourselves a few more weeks to polish the last details. It's a forecast, not a promise: people on the waitlist will know the exact day before anyone else.

The initial launch is on Android. iOS is on our roadmap and is a priority, but we want to make sure the experience is solid on Android before expanding.

LifeSugar has a single paid plan: €7.99/month or €69.99/year (the yearly plan saves you 27%, VAT included). There is no permanent free version, but you can try the app free for 14 days before you're charged anything, and cancel whenever you like. No ads and no minimum term.

No, never. We believe a health app shouldn't have ads. Our model is based on the subscription, not on your attention.

Your photo is sent to the AI to be analysed and is not stored, unless you save it in your diary. Your health data is stored encrypted on servers in the European Union (Google Cloud). Google processes the images on our behalf, but we don't sell or share your data with third parties for commercial or advertising purposes. The details are in our privacy policy.

Yes. From the web dashboard (“My data”) you download your diary as CSV or print it as a PDF; the app can't export yet. And you can delete your account at any time, in Settings.

Your doctor or nurse doesn't use the app: they consult a dashboard with your charts, portions and activity. You give them access, it's individual to that professional and you can withdraw it whenever you like. If you don't give it to anyone, nobody sees it. You can also not share anything and take them the PDF you get from “My data”.

Your photo is processed to give you the result and is not stored, unless you save it in your diary. To improve the model we only use anonymised, dissociated data, which can no longer identify you. And Google, which processes the image on our behalf, doesn't use it to train its models under its business terms.

No. LifeSugar is a support tool and its estimates are approximate. Decisions about insulin doses, medication or changes to your diet should always be made with your healthcare team. Never use the estimates as your only reference for calculating insulin boluses.

No. The dashboard is support for the appointment: it organises what you logged and shows how your food, your blood glucose and your insulin relate to each other. It doesn't suggest regimens or treatment changes, doesn't calculate doses and doesn't draw conclusions about you. Your doctor decides that with you.

No. LifeSugar is not a medical device and doesn't have CE marking as such. It's a support tool to make food logging easier. The results are AI-based approximations and may contain errors.