<![CDATA[Manual chili quality sorting is susceptible to subjectivity and inter-assessor inconsistency, which can reduce product market value. This study conducts a comparative analysis of three Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architectures—Custom CNN, MobileNetV3-Small, and EfficientNetV2-B0 for binary chili quality classification (Good/Bad) using a primary dataset of 1,383 chili images (684 Good-class, 699 Bad-class) captured with a smartphone camera. The Good class includes chili with a smooth surface, fresh color, and no decay spots, while the Bad class includes chili showing signs of decay, physical defects, or deformation. Evaluation was conducted based on accuracy, precision, recall, F1-Score, AUC, inference time, and post-quantization model size. The results show that EfficientNetV2-B0 achieved the highest accuracy of 92.0% (precision 92.4%, recall 92.0%, F1-Score 92.0%, AUC 0.961), MobileNetV3-Small obtained an accuracy of 87.7% with the lowest server-side inference latency (2.39 ms), and Custom CNN achieved 87.3% accuracy with the most compact model size (118 KB post-quantization). All three models were integrated into a Flutter-based Android application prototype as a proof-of-concept, displaying the classification result (Good/Bad), confidence score, and inference latency, with end-to-end response times ranging from 80 to 120 ms on a Xiaomi 13T device. This study contributes empirical comparative data on three CNN architectures in the chili quality classification domain, accompanied by the construction of a local dataset and technical validation of model deployment on a mobile device. The results of this study are expected to serve as a reference in selecting CNN architecture for the development of a mobile-based chili quality classification system, particularly as a first step toward the implementation of simple small-scale sorting at the farmer level.]]>
