Systems and methods of product identification within an image

A system to identify products, comprising:

• product vector database storing thousands of standardized product vectors, wherein each product vector numerically represents textual information on packaging of a respective one of the products;
• a product recommendation system communicatively coupled over a distributed computer network with the product vector database;
• a plurality of point of sale systems;
• a plurality of portable computing devices operating as network edge components, wherein each portable computing device comprises a camera, a display, a wireless transceiver, a control circuit and memory coupled to the control circuit, wherein the memory stores a local product database and a software application, wherein the control circuit, when locally executing the software application, is configured to:
• access an image captured by the camera;
• perform, locally on the portable computing device, an optical character recognition (OCR) on the image and identify a set of text from the image;
• apply, locally on the portable computing device, a first set of vector modeling rules to at least a subset of key text of the set of text, and generate a first query product vector from the at least the subset of key text;
• and
• wirelessly communicate the first query product vector to the product recommendation system without implementing another secondary mode of product identification and without communicating other product information from another secondary mode of product identification;
• the product recommendation system is configured to receive the first query product vector;
• access the product vector database;
• apply a first set of vector evaluation rules relative to the first query product vector in relation to the product vector database;
• identify, based on the first query product vector, a first product determined to be captured in the image;
• obtain a first product identifier of the first product;
• and wirelessly communicate to the portable computing device the first product identifier without communicating other product information of the first product;
• wherein the control circuit is further configured to:
• wirelessly receive the first product identifier from the product recommendation system determined based on the first query product vector;
• access, from the local product database, first product information exclusively corresponding to the first product identifier and comprising at least a first product name;
• cause at least a subset of the first product information to be displayed on the display;
• and
• cause the first product to be virtually added to a virtual cart corresponding to a customer associated with the portable computing device.