I usually rely on ChatGPT to stay productive at work. But recently, I used it to get to work — after losing a contact lens in the shower.
I had eye surgery as a baby and have worn glasses ever since. I'm effectively blind without my glasses, so when my contact lens popped out mid-shampoo, it wasn’t a minor inconvenience. It was a full stop. One eye blurry, one eye useless and no idea where a clear piece of plastic might have landed.
Because of my prescription, my contacts aren’t disposable, which makes losing one an expensive mistake. I felt my day derail as I stood there, blinking through one eye. Staring at a shower floor, half-blind, I started to panic.
Out of mild desperation — and curiosity — I tried something different. I opened ChatGPT, turned on Voice and Vision, and slowly swept my phone across the shower floor.
Letting AI see what I couldn’t
Before even turning on the camera, I asked a simple question: “Can you help me find my contact lens?”
ChatGPT immediately offered basic advice — check the bath mat, the floor and even my eyelid. But then I took it a step further. With Voice and Vision enabled, I let ChatGPT guide me in real time as I scanned the floor, effectively turning it into a second set of eyes.
What surprised me wasn’t that ChatGPT tried to help — it was how specific the chatbot was with its help. Instead of vague suggestions, it pointed out things like small translucent curves near the edge of a tile, where the light reflected slightly differently than the surrounding surface.
After a few minutes of crouching and following ChatGPT's guidance, I wiped away some water and there it was: the contact lens. Intact. Not crushed. Not lost forever down the drain.
How to do this yourself
ChatGPT Vision isn’t “recognizing” a contact lens the way it might identify a dog or a plant. It’s analyzing contrast, reflections, shapes and small irregularities — things that are easy to miss when your vision is compromised and your brain is already stressed.
In this case, AI wasn’t smarter than me. It was calmer.
If you've lost something small like a contact lens, earring, tack or something else that's small and hard to find, it's worth trying the ChatGPT Vision method to find it.
- Open the ChatGPT app and tap the Camera icon.
- Speak to it: "I dropped/lost a contact lens/earring here. Help me find it."
- Move your phone slowly over the surface.
- Wait for the AI to highlight the anomaly.
Bottom line: A surprisingly practical use for ChatGPT Vision
We tend to think of ChatGPT Vision as a tool for translating menus in foreign languages, reading signs or analyzing charts.
But sometimes the most useful thing AI can do isn’t something expected or even ordinary — it’s helping you find something you literally can’t see.
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