Why I Built It (and how it actually works)
Hey dev.to! 👋
A couple of weeks ago I had a random shower thought:
Everyone tracks workouts and steps… but almost nobody tracks what actually ends up in the fridge.
We all use MyFitnessPal, Yazio, Cronometer they’re awesome.
But let’s be real: who actually scans every single item at the store?
Meanwhile, your grocery receipt already knows exactly what you bought this week.
So I built HelloCheck a Telegram bot that turns any receipt photo into calories, a health score, and surprisingly useful advice.
→ Try it right now: @HelloCheckAppBot
→ Landing: https://hellocheck.app
How it feels to use (it’s actually magic)
- Send a photo of your receipt (any language, any country, even crumpled)
- Wait 10-15 seconds
- Get back:
- Full item list with quantities
- Total estimated calories for the basket
- Health Score from F to A
- Breakdown: veggies, sweets, processed foods, etc.
- Personalized tips + a tiny challenge for next time
- Progress compared to your previous receipts
The bot supports English and Russian (you pick once at start) and auto-detects + translates anything on the receipt.
The tech (short and sweet)
- Pure Python
- GPT-4o-mini for parsing receipts (cheap and insanely accurate even on terrible photos)
- My own prompt engineering + growing nutrition database
- Custom health scoring logic I wrote from scratch
Free tier: 10 free scans per month
Pro tier: 250 Telegram Stars (~$5 one-time) → 100 scans + upcoming Pro stats
Coming soon for Pro users
- Total calories per month
- Average Health Score over time
- How many of your baskets were A/B/C/D/F
- Your personal “Top 3 most-bought items” (prepare to be judged 😂)
Why this feels different
It’s not yet another food-logging app that guilts you when you forget to log dinner.
It’s a mirror. One photo → instant, honest feedback about your real eating habits.
And somehow people love it when the bot gently roasts them for three packs of chocolate in one trip.
Try it and roast me back
Seriously, just send your latest receipt to @HelloCheckAppBot and drop your score in the comments. I want to see the wildest baskets out there.
If you’re also building weird little tools that scratch your own itch, tell me about it below. I live for solo-dev stories.
Thanks for reading, and may your next Health Score be an A 🥬
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