Where do gear values come from?

Every weight and price in Gearlogue is tagged with where it came from — so you can tell at a glance whether you're looking at a number you measured yourself, a community-supplied value, or an AI estimate. This matters when you're packing for a trip and the total looks neat: if half of it is AI-guessed, you want to know before you commit to it.

The five source types

• You — values you've entered or measured yourself. The most trusted source.
• Community — values from another Gearlogue user, or pulled from our community-built catalogue. Trusted enough to count toward "verified" totals, but not independently checked by Gearlogue.
• Web — pulled from a web page via AI search. The badge tooltip links to the source URL. Counted as "estimated" until you confirm the value yourself.
• Estimated / unconfirmed — covers AI training-data estimates (only when you opt in), values from imported files where you didn't tick "these are my own", and starter-template values. The most important badge to watch — these are the values worth verifying.
• Origin unknown — values from before Gearlogue tracked source. Confirm them in the gear detail view to upgrade them to "You".

What "verified" means in pack totals

When your kit total shows 6.9 kg verified · 1.8 kg estimated, "verified" means values you've entered yourself plus values from the Gearlogue community catalogue (entered by other users — not independently checked by Gearlogue). "Estimated" means AI guesses or values pulled from web sources without your confirmation. If a third "unattributed" segment appears, those are pre-launch values — confirm them to upgrade.

Upgrading an estimate to a measured value

Open any gear item with a sparkles icon and tap "Replace with my measured value →". The field opens for editing. Save your number, and the source updates to "You" automatically — and the rollup updates with it.

How AI chat handles unknown values

The AI assistant omits weights and prices it doesn't know rather than guessing — popular product weights from the AI's training data are often 20–40% wrong. When you ask it to fill in gaps, the AI offers a three-way choice: type values yourself, search the web (uses AI credits), or estimate from typical specs. Anything the AI estimates is clearly labelled "Estimated" so the rollup stays honest.

Imports and the "my own values" tickbox

When you import gear from a file (CSV, XLSX, PDF), the import preview includes a tickbox: "These weights and prices are my own — not estimates from the imported file". Tick it if you measured the values yourself; leave it unticked if the values come from a manufacturer page, a forum thread, or anywhere else. The tickbox defaults to unchecked on each import — explicit confirmation per import.

When the AI imports gear from a chat conversation ("import these 12 items"), it asks you the same question conversationally before saving. The system rejects AI imports that don't carry an explicit answer, so the AI cannot quietly skip it.

Why this matters for safety-critical decisions

Don't rely on community-supplied or AI-estimated values for safety-critical decisions — load limits, technical climbing, hiking with children, water sports. Verify weights, dimensions, and specifications yourself before relying on them. See our terms of service for the full disclaimer.