Feedback for Seek by iNaturalist

To the iNaturalist Development Team,

I am writing to share some feedback regarding the Seek by iNaturalist app, based on extensive personal use and discussions with fellow naturalists. While we appreciate the vision behind Seek as a learning and engagement tool, there are several persistent issues — particularly concerning its integration with the iNaturalist database and its functionality in the field — that merit attention.

Key Concerns and Areas for Improvement:

Poor Integration with iNaturalist Accounts:
Although Seek allows linking to an iNaturalist account, the integration is shallow and opaque. Observations made and saved in Seek do not reliably or clearly appear in the iNaturalist observation history. Users expect that when they authorize the connection, Seek observations will seamlessly transfer to their iNaturalist account. In reality, the upload process is unclear, inconsistent, and at times non-functional, with no feedback when uploads fail.

Lack of Offline Support and Preloading:
Many of us use Seek in remote areas with no cellular coverage. Unlike apps such as Merlin Bird ID, Seek lacks the ability to preload regional species data (e.g., all dicots or all oaks in a given area). This results in reduced functionality exactly when users need it most — on field outings without signal.

Subpar Identification Accuracy:
While the idea of on-device, privacy-conscious identification is admirable, Seek’s plant ID accuracy lags noticeably behind more robust tools. In many cases, the app only provides high-level taxonomic guesses (e.g., “dicot” or “genus level”) despite good photos, even of common species. This performance gap is especially frustrating when Merlin, for example, can offer confident bird IDs using limited visual/audio data.

Lack of Confidence Scoring and Misleading Labels:
The use of terms like “likely” or “suggested” can be misleading when they are based on very weak visual cues. More transparent confidence scores or explicit disclaimers would help users interpret Seek’s suggestions appropriately, especially newer users who may mistake these suggestions for definitive IDs.

No Post-Hoc Uploading of Observations to iNaturalist:
Users frequently discover that observations made in Seek cannot be retroactively uploaded to iNaturalist after the fact. This limitation is frustrating, particularly for users who assumed linking their account meant a full connection. A simple “upload to iNaturalist” option for each logged observation would go a long way toward bridging this gap.

Minimal Feedback or Logging of Upload Status:
When uploads fail — due to connection issues or other causes — there is no error reporting or notification. Users are left unsure whether their observations were saved or lost, and there’s no retry option. A basic activity log or confirmation of upload status would be a substantial improvement.

We recognize that Seek and iNaturalist serve different user groups, and we value both tools. However, improving Seek’s reliability, transparency, and integration with iNaturalist would enhance the experience for power users and casual observers alike, especially those attempting to transition from one platform to the other.

Thank you for your continued work on these important biodiversity tools. We hope this feedback is helpful in shaping future development.

Sincerely,
Scott Ray

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Seek was not designed for "power users " it was designed for children.

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(I updated the topic title so that it specifically addresses the topic of the post)

Thanks for the feedback.

Correct, Seek is designed to be an alternative to iNaturalist, not an adjunct to it. It’s for people who don’t want to or can’t legally share their observations publicly, or don’t want to interact with others. And/or people who who want to earn badges. That being said, I agree that it’s sort of in a muddy interzone between the two with some things not clearly defined.

The entire model is on the app, there are no separate packages to load for specialized offline use. All taxa in the model (around 86k) are already there.

I love Merlin and use it all the time, but a) it’s sometimes wrong as well - no shade on it, it’s just something that will happen with these models - and b) it’s also missing taxa. When I used it in Panama it said it only had a limited number of species available the country.

I also don’t think it’s an apt comparison. Merlin at most has to deal with about 11k species (and as noted above, it has fewer taxa than that in its model). There are over 80k species in Seek, and when it comes to plants it’s simply not possible to ID some of them to species if you’re missing certain features. We’d rather Seek be accurate at a higher taxonomic level than inaccurate at a finer taxonomic level (although of course that does also happen). It can be frustrating, but I think also educational: sometimes it’s just not possible to get to species based on certain evidence.

A fair critique. I don’t know if you’ve used the new iNat iPhone app but it does display a percentage with its IDs. Perhaps something to be integrated with Seek.

When you log in to iNaturalist in Seek, the app pretty clearly tells you what the limitations are:

Again, Seek is not an app for sharing data. Adding something like this would, IMO, blur the lines even further between the apps. And it would combine gamification (which is what Seek has) with posting data, which is something we want to avoid on iNaturalist.

One thing I think we can fix soon is Seek being able to record location data when you take a photo with it - currently not possible in iOS. Then at least you’d have the photo with all its data that can be posted to iNat.

Yes, a one-time “transfer everything to iNat” process would be cool but not easy to build.

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Hello,

Nice, will we get them on the website and Android app too ? :-)

On the website you can use this
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/inaturalist-enhancement-s/hdnjehcihcpjphgbkagjobenejgldnah

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inaturalist-enhancement-suite-chrome-extension-v0-7-0-identifier-stats/44002

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Yes very useful :-)
I already use it but sometimes it fails to add color scales so having percentages displayed could be useful for me (and for people who don’t/can’t use the extension).

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It has been slow lately - and I need to refresh 2 or 3 times.

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One of my ecology professors always used Seek and had it synced to upload to iNat, I guess he liked the live CV ID rather than having to make a couple more clicks to take a photo. Anyways, I tried in vain a couple times to convince him of the superiority of the iNat app, and 5 years later I still see batches of observations coming in on his account all with only one photo and often missing locations.

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