4 ms·

Is there a similar way of detecting the web cam in use on macOS?

by robbles 5y ago

hammock 5y ago
My MacBook has a built-in green LED right next to the camera that turns on when the camera is on.
- giglamesh 5y ago
  I had the same thought and then read the article. Turns out this is about telling other people in a shared space - such as a work from home situation - that you are in a meeting. Which would not work for me as I generally keep the camera off to save bandwidth and the last remaining shreds of my sanity.
e40 5y ago
There has to be, as Micro Snitch tells me when it is. EDIT: on my iMac M1 the built-in camera and mic are not detectable by MS. So, maybe not... EDIT2: https://obdev.at/products/microsnitch/releasenotes.html https://obdev.at/products/microsnitch/releasenotes.html It's a bug in Big Sur, so hopefully it will be fixed and MS will work again.
wvaughan 5y ago
I was able to make something similar using Home Assistant to get the webcam status on the mac - https://willvaughan.design/making-an-on-air-light-for-my-home-office https://willvaughan.design/making-an-on-air-light-for-my-hom...
stevenbedrick 5y ago
Take a look at the code for Objective-See’s “OverSight” utility; it is a good example of how to detect AV events system-wide. It’s also a really great app… https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html
- doesnotexist 5y ago
  Their FAQ gives a sketch of how they detect AV events on Mac OS: Q: Why does it take OverSight, a few seconds to display the webcam/mic usage notification? A: There is not easy way to determine what process is using the webcam or mic, when either is activated. Worse, there is no direct indication that a new process is accessing an existing a webcam session. Thus OverSight has to perform various tests and has to poll the system (only when the camera/mic is active) in order to determine what process(es) is/are accessing the device. This takes a few seconds...mahalo for your patience!
isatty 5y ago
Here you go: https://stty.io/2020/07/31/lamp-control-based-on-video-conferencing/ https://stty.io/2020/07/31/lamp-control-based-on-video-confe... I’ve been using this for ~1 and it’s been more reliable than I expected - no maintenance required even with the update to Big Sur. To save you a click: log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.VDCAssistant" && \ eventMessage CONTAINS[c] "kCameraStream"' --last 1m --no-debug --no-pager \ --style compact | tail -n +2) #or log stream ... # streaming is better to generate events
- jeremy8883 5y ago
  Thank you! I couldn't originally figure this out for my "on air" script, so my workaround was to query the existance of the `zoom.us` process every second.
ProZsolt 5y ago
I wanted to do the same so I started to write a small utility in Objective-C: https://github.com/ProZsolt/onair https://github.com/ProZsolt/onair It's able to detect camera and microphone activation/deactivation and logs it to stdout. Currently figuring out how to detect when a new peripheral is connected.

Is there a similar way of detecting the web cam in use on macOS?

hammock 5y ago

My MacBook has a built-in green LED right next to the camera that turns on when the camera is on.

giglamesh 5y ago
I had the same thought and then read the article. Turns out this is about telling other people in a shared space - such as a work from home situation - that you are in a meeting. Which would not work for me as I generally keep the camera off to save bandwidth and the last remaining shreds of my sanity.

e40 5y ago

There has to be, as Micro Snitch tells me when it is. EDIT: on my iMac M1 the built-in camera and mic are not detectable by MS. So, maybe not... EDIT2: https://obdev.at/products/microsnitch/releasenotes.html https://obdev.at/products/microsnitch/releasenotes.html It's a bug in Big Sur, so hopefully it will be fixed and MS will work again.

wvaughan 5y ago

I was able to make something similar using Home Assistant to get the webcam status on the mac - https://willvaughan.design/making-an-on-air-light-for-my-home-office https://willvaughan.design/making-an-on-air-light-for-my-hom...

stevenbedrick 5y ago

Take a look at the code for Objective-See’s “OverSight” utility; it is a good example of how to detect AV events system-wide. It’s also a really great app… https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html

doesnotexist 5y ago
Their FAQ gives a sketch of how they detect AV events on Mac OS: Q: Why does it take OverSight, a few seconds to display the webcam/mic usage notification? A: There is not easy way to determine what process is using the webcam or mic, when either is activated. Worse, there is no direct indication that a new process is accessing an existing a webcam session. Thus OverSight has to perform various tests and has to poll the system (only when the camera/mic is active) in order to determine what process(es) is/are accessing the device. This takes a few seconds...mahalo for your patience!

isatty 5y ago

Here you go: https://stty.io/2020/07/31/lamp-control-based-on-video-conferencing/ https://stty.io/2020/07/31/lamp-control-based-on-video-confe... I’ve been using this for ~1 and it’s been more reliable than I expected - no maintenance required even with the update to Big Sur. To save you a click: log show --predicate 'subsystem == "com.apple.VDCAssistant" && \ eventMessage CONTAINS[c] "kCameraStream"' --last 1m --no-debug --no-pager \ --style compact | tail -n +2) #or log stream ... # streaming is better to generate events

jeremy8883 5y ago
Thank you! I couldn't originally figure this out for my "on air" script, so my workaround was to query the existance of the `zoom.us` process every second.

ProZsolt 5y ago

I wanted to do the same so I started to write a small utility in Objective-C: https://github.com/ProZsolt/onair https://github.com/ProZsolt/onair It's able to detect camera and microphone activation/deactivation and logs it to stdout. Currently figuring out how to detect when a new peripheral is connected.