Point your phone at a dog. Overbark reads the bark, the posture, and the surroundings, and floats what the moment sounds like it's saying into comic bubbles. Here's how to get the most out of it.
Getting started
Open the app and aim the camera at your dog. On first launch it asks for the camera and microphone — both are needed to see the dog and hear the barks. Give it a moment to find the dog; a reticle locks on, and bubbles start to appear. Good light and a clear view of the whole dog work best.
Reading the bubbles
Two kinds of bubble share one running transcript:
Barks are the hero bubbles — they appear when your dog actually barks, styled bold.
Thoughts are the quieter ones that drift by between barks (turn these off under Settings › Thoughts if you want barks only).
New bubbles land at the bottom and rise as the moment moves on, oldest fading out — a self-clearing conveyor. Drag the stack to put it wherever you like on screen; it stays there.
The observation deck
The bottom strip reports four live reads, plus a soundwave that lights up with every bark:
Mindsetthe scene it thinks you're in — walk, yard, beach, resting, and so on.
Insightsthe specific thing it's locked onto right now — a ball, a bowl, a door, another dog.
Presencehow many dogs it can see.
Vocalthe tone of the most recent bark.
Point two dogs at it and each gets its own column of bubbles — and they'll talk to each other.
Settings, briefly
Theme & Bubble Style. Seven palettes and three bubble looks, plus a Light / Dark switch that re-tones the whole app.
Your Dogs. Name each dog and set a temperament — calm dogs think and bark less, active ones more. It's also what lets one dog wonder aloud where the other went, by name.
Thoughts. The ambient inner monologue between barks — on for commentary, off for barks only.
Hooman Input Channel (optional). On-device speech recognition, in your device's language, so the dog reacts to what you say. Off by default.
Display. Hide the deck or the soundwave for just the camera and the bubbles.
Permissions
Camera and microphone are required — without them Overbark can't see the dog or hear the barks. Speech is optional and stays off until you switch it on. All of it is used live, on your device, and never recorded or sent anywhere.
Turning a permission back on
Tapped “Don't Allow” by accident? No problem. For your privacy, iOS only lets you re-enable a permission from its own Settings — Overbark can't pop the request again — but it takes a few seconds:
Open the iOS Settings app (the grey gear icon).
Scroll down the list and tap Overbark.
Switch on Camera and Microphone.
Return to Overbark — it picks them up right away, no restart needed.
Prefer the other route? In Settings go to Privacy & Security → Camera and switch Overbark on, then do the same under Privacy & Security → Microphone. Speech lives there too, if you ever decide to enable it.
Tips & troubleshooting
No bubbles? Make sure the camera and microphone are allowed (see above), there's enough light, and the dog is reasonably framed. Give it a few seconds to acquire.
The reads seem off? Include the dog and a little of its surroundings in frame — Overbark uses the scene, not just the dog, to pick the moment.
It's for entertainment. The sensors are real; the sentence in the bubble is a very confident guess. Your dog has not confirmed any of it.
Works offline. Overbark never goes online — try it in Airplane Mode, it works exactly the same.
Privacy
Everything runs on your device. No account, no cloud, no tracking, nothing uploaded. Read the full privacy policy.
Contact
Questions, ideas, or a bark it got gloriously wrong? Email mike.mcfin@gmail.com.