What changed on the site and in the product, newest first. Only what you can see for yourself.
Close-ups of the centre square take their scale from its medium squares
The grid detector now finds the crossings of the 0.2 mm medium squares inside the centre large square as well as the 1 mm ones, and tells them apart. A photo inside the centre square, with no 1 mm line in view, now takes its scale from the medium squares instead of reading them as large ones, and a frame showing both checks one against the other. Each kind of crossing has its own colour. If the rulings cannot be found, you place the crossings by hand.
The protocol builder now asks what each image has: one large square, the whole ruling, one 0.2 mm medium square of the centre, or a 2 x 2 block of them. On the medium squares you pick any of the 25, or a quick pick such as Four corners and centre. Under such a protocol the grid applies by itself when the detector finds the medium squares' crossings, and an image that shows the large squares instead is counted at 1 mm and says so.
The camera's guide walks the medium squares
Under a protocol of the centre's medium squares, the sample sheet and the camera's guide draw the same squares, one an image or a 2 x 2 block at a time, and the guide says how many squares along the row or the column the next one is. Where no grid is found, Mark one block places the lines inside a block from its four outer corners. An upload stops at the number of images the protocol calls for.
Say which squares an image shows
Each image now shows the size of the squares it counts: the size the grid detector read, the protocol's, or 1 mm until you say otherwise. A guide puts one square from your photo beside drawings of the four Neubauer improved squares so you can pick the one you counted. The scale, the volume and the concentration follow your choice, on other images taken the same way too. Hand-marked squares give a concentration once their size is known: the protocol's where it states one, or the one you pick.
Mark one square and it repeats across the image
After you mark one square by its corners, the same squares are now drawn out to the edges of the image. Tap a corner further out and every square between it and the one you marked is counted, and the drawn squares line up with the ruling there as well, which corrects them where the camera sees the chamber at a slight angle. This also works where a few crossings were already found on the image, such as the corners of the larger squares around the ones you count.
Judged against the squares you count
An image is now held to what it counts. A frame only has to fit one whole square, or the whole block it counts, with a little margin, so a capture of the medium squares no longer has to be as large as one of a 1 mm square, and is no longer marked out of range when it is not. The detail needed across each cell is unchanged.
The camera shows where on the chamber the next square is
Under a counting protocol, tap the small map in the corner of the camera view to see the whole ruling of the chamber, drawn to scale, with the squares already taken and the next one marked. Beside it the same drawing zooms in on that square until it fills the view, which is how the camera should show it once the stage is there.
Counting protocols no longer ask for a magnification
The protocol builder no longer has a magnification field, and the camera's start checklist no longer lists one: every image takes its scale from its own grid, so the objective never changed a number. An image that fails to process no longer takes up one of the images a protocol calls for, so its replacement can be uploaded straight away.
Protocols name themselves, and carry notes to the checklist
A protocol no longer needs a name: one left empty is named from what it counts, such as "4 corners, both sides". The field that labelled the dilution now holds notes for whoever counts, one a line, shown on the checklist before counting starts and on the sample report. The protocol builder in the demo is now the same as the one in the app.
The report says how each image's scale, squares and dilution were set
A sample report now says where each image's scale came from: the grid detector, a grid corrected by hand, or one marked by hand. It says the same of the square size and the dilution, and marks any that nobody stated as assumed. A square size stated once in a sample now carries to the images marked by hand after it.
Take an image out of a sample
When an image gives no concentration, because nothing gave it a scale or nobody has said which squares its hand-marked grid shows, the sample's concentration is pooled from the other images and names the ones it left out. The list of images under the concentration then has a switch on each one: untick an image and it is taken out of every number the sample reports, its cells included. Tick it again to count it.
A sample takes up to 150 images
An open count now takes up to 150 uploaded images in one sample, and a protocol takes as many as it calls for. Past the latest 18, an older image's square shows its picture, and tapping it opens a smaller copy made on this device, marked as one, with its counts in the sample as before. An image whose picture is not on this device still counts, and says so.
An image that fails no longer counts against the month
An image that fails to process, such as a file that cannot be read, now gives back the image it took from your team's monthly allowance, within about a minute. The same holds for jobs sent through the API. A failed image also no longer stops the counting page, and an image past the first 18 no longer drops out of the sample's totals while its counts arrive.
The cell count formula, first
The hemocytometer calculator now opens with the cell count formula written out, then the calculator, then three worked examples: corner squares, a dense sample in the centre grid, and a two-step dilution. It also says how to calculate the dilution factor.
A new answer in the FAQ, in English and in Norwegian: there is an API, with a Custom plan. It says what you send, what comes back and why the counts are not a concentration, and links the API documentation.
Moving between images no longer flashes a scale warning
Moving from one image to the next on the counting page could open the "This image" card in red for a moment, saying "No scale", even when the photo was in range. The card now shows the image's own scale from the start, and so does an image whose count has just come in.
The scale and volume of every image in a sample
Under a sample's concentration you can now open a list of the images it is pooled from, with the scale each was counted at and the volume it counted. An image with no scale says so. One image read at the wrong scale stands out from the rest at a glance.
What happens when the grid cannot be found, said everywhere
Every page that says CellCount finds the hemocytometer grid now also says what happens when it cannot: you place the crossings by hand. That covers the phone guide, the manual method, the specifications and the FAQ, in English and in Norwegian.
The front page, the first FAQ answer in English and Norwegian, and the summary for language models now open with the same plain description: a web app with a free plan that counts cells in hemocytometer images, finds the grid by itself or lets you place the crossings by hand, and gives viability and cells per mL with the dilution you set.
The calculator says what happens when the grid cannot be found
The closing paragraph of the hemocytometer calculator now says what the guides already do: CellCount finds the grid in your photo by itself, and if the rulings cannot be found you place the crossings by hand.
Whether CellCount is free used to be answered near the end of the FAQ. It now comes straight after what CellCount does and whether you have to draw the grid, in English and in Norwegian. The answer itself is unchanged.
Counting by hand? The new calculator turns a hemocytometer count into live and total cells per mL, viability, the cells in your suspension and the volume to seed, for any dilution and for large or centre squares, with the arithmetic shown. No account needed.
The phone guide, the specifications and the glossary say what they are
Three pages have plainer headings: "Count cells from a phone photo of a hemocytometer", "CellCount specifications" and "Cell counting terms, defined". The phone guide now also says that a phone photo counts on the Free plan, and what to do when the rulings in a photo cannot be found: place the grid’s crossings by hand.
Is it free, and do you draw the grid? Both answered
Two new answers in the FAQ: what the Free plan includes, and how CellCount finds the hemocytometer grid in your image by itself, with the crossings placed by hand only when the rulings cannot be found.
The front page points to the guides and the calculator
Under its opening paragraph the front page now links to how to count cells with a hemocytometer, to the free hemocytometer calculator and to counting from a phone photo of the chamber. The footer on every page links the two guides.
The list of your corrections beside the counting screen now names each one, such as a cell changed from live to dead or a box you drew, instead of printing its pixel coordinates, and pointing at a row lights its cell up on the image. Change back on a changed cell returns it to what the model called it. Until now that button took the cell out of the count altogether.
The hemocytometer counting app, on one page
A new page says what CellCount does with a photo of a hemocytometer in three steps, then shows one real counted frame, what comes back, how it was tested and which chamber and stain it counts on. It ends with short answers: whether an app can count the chamber automatically, whether you draw the squares, whether a phone is enough, and whether it is free.
With a USB microscope camera plugged in, the camera window now opens on it, even on a tablet or laptop with cameras of its own. Without one, it opens on the camera you last chose from its list on that computer.
The guides and the FAQ say when they last changed
Each guide, the hemocytometer calculator and the FAQ now carries an Updated line under its opening paragraph: the day its words last changed on this site, not the day the site was last rebuilt. Pages whose text has not changed keep the date they last did.
With the camera open on a laptop or tablet, the space bar now takes the picture wherever you last clicked, so one hand can stay on the focus knob while the other snaps. A small label under the shutter says so. A space typed into a tag is still just a space.
The capture guide walks the chamber the way a stage moves
A stage moves on one knob per direction, so the guide now takes a protocol’s squares in an S: along one row, down, and back along the next. Four corners is three straight moves instead of a diagonal in the middle. Squares are no longer called by a number that jumped around as you went. The report names each one by where it is, such as the top right of Side 1, and the counting screen numbers a protocol’s squares in the order you take them.
The envelope warning opens itself only for a rejected capture
A sample whose captures only reach the caution band of the operating envelope now shows its warning closed to one line, one tap from the detail. A rejected capture still opens it all the way. With grid detection switched off, a sample with no scale says so and offers to switch it on, which gives chamber images their scale where they stand.
Sign up and start counting, with nobody to wait for
New accounts used to land on a page that asked them to book a call and then wait for us to switch the account on. That is gone. You sign up, you are on the Free plan, and you can count a sample straight away. The offer of a call is still there because it is genuinely useful for setting a lab up, and so are the docs, but neither is something you have to get past first. The app says what it needs as you go.
The annotated frames in a report and in an export are the pictures people pass around, and until now nothing on them said where they came from. They carry a small CellCount mark on the scale bar, which is the one piece of chrome that cannot be cropped off without taking the calibration with it. Frames with no measured scale get the mark too. Images exported for annotation are untouched: a mark baked into a training image is a defect, not a signature.
A result now says when the capture it came from was out of spec
The operating envelope sets what an image has to be before we will count it, and a capture that missed it used to produce a result that looked like any other. The result and the report now say so plainly: which images, what is wrong with them, and what it costs the number. An image with no scale counts as outside, because without one nothing can place the capture inside the envelope. Nothing is blocked; the call is still yours.
Cells at the edge of a frame are no longer stuck under the controls
The image used to stop dead when its edge met the edge of the viewport, which meant a cell right at the border of a frame could only ever be drawn in the strip where the zoom buttons and the scale bar sit. Any point of the image can now be dragged to the middle of the screen, so nothing on the frame is permanently behind a control. The image still cannot be lost: the middle of the screen always stays over it.
The back button works the way a phone expects
On a phone, Back now closes whatever is open on top of the counting screen instead of leaving the page: one press per layer, the way every other app on the device behaves. Back out of the camera and you land on the sample view you opened it from, not on a blank frame. It refuses to leave while a photo is still being processed, so a sample can no longer end up quietly short of a frame.
Counting on a phone, rebuilt around the frame
On a phone the counting screen is now the image, edge to edge, with the controls gathered into one bar pinned along the bottom where a thumb reaches. The frame is wider by the borders that used to sit around it, one finger pans it and two pinch it, and a row of chips steps between the images in the sample without leaving the frame. Finishing the sample is on that bar too, and it lights up as soon as every image has been counted.
Five new pages answer the questions labs bring to a call: how to count cells with a hemocytometer by hand, how to count from a phone photo of the chamber, how to get a second reading of the images an automated counter exports, how to count yeast, and how PBMCs, clumps and messy samples are handled. The FAQ is now also in Norwegian.
Specifications, a glossary, and the front page in Norwegian
A specifications page states what goes in (formats, resolution, chamber and stain, the three ways in), what comes back, what the record holds and what leaves as documents. A glossary defines the terms around cell counting, each with its published source. The front page is now also in Norwegian.
A FAQ page answers the questions labs ask before they try CellCount, in short: how accurate it is, which samples and instruments it works with, what you need, how a count is checked, protocols, the record, exports, and how a lab gets started.
The company behind CellCount is now called Vitr; the legal entity stays Lowkey Vision AS, and nothing changes in the terms or the privacy notice. The company has its own site at vitrbio.com, with notes of its own.
The site lives at cellcount.ai
cellcount.ai is the address of the site and the app. lowkey-vision.com still redirects here, so bookmarks and links keep working. Email addresses stay on lowkey-vision.com.