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Android 14 adds support for using your smartphone as a webcam

453 points by amadeuspagel 3y ago

filereaper 3y ago
This is a welcome addition, companies spend time and effort building cameras with tracking and portrait mode etc.. I just feel this feature comes a bit too late where there was a scramble during the pandemic to get webcams as everything suddenly went remote. Would have been good to have shipped this feature back then instead of buying 3rd party apps that provided this feature.
- Justsignedup 3y ago
  It is a trade-off. You get some things, and you get google's shit product processes.
  - smitty1e 3y ago
    Tell me that you're not still bitter over Google Reader. Like me.
    - Justsignedup 3y ago
      HA!!!! nah, but since i tried switching my friends to hangouts the first time, i never trusted google with a product release ever.
- xnx 3y ago
  Exactly. I for sure would've thought this would be a "20% time" app as lockdowns became common. Wyze figured out how to allow its security cameras to be used as webcams in March 2020! https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/31/21202022/wyze-firmware-update-webcam-security-camera-transform-solution-guide https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/31/21202022/wyze-firmware-up...
  - sleepyxuras91 3y ago
    Canon also released an app during lockdown to make your DSLR or mirrorless camera into a webcam too. Shocking how quick companies can do things when a global pandemic pushes them after years of odd tethering and window screen capturing mess I've had with canon before hand for live streaming.
    - __mharrison__ 3y ago
      Sadly this app doesn't work with modern Macs and Canon had y their head in the same and refuses to address it. I ended up getting a Sony mirrorless for a webcam. (Might seem like overkill but I spend a good deal of my time teaching in front of a camera.)
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    Its like a 5 hour job to get something that technically works and then a 10,000 hour job to get something that works flawlessly. The Apple integration with the iphone and macbook is the most seamless setup I've seen so far but I've still gone back to just using the built in webcam because its too fiddly to put my phone up on the screen and occasionally have issues where it won't connect. Phone as webcam just doesn't seem like a long term solution, eventually built in webcams will be cheap and good enough. And tbh I find the built in one on the macbook to be bordering on good enough once you consider how compressed and tiny the output will be on the other persons screen.
    - xnx 3y ago
      MVP to full product is definitely the bigger part of the work. In the environment of early COVID, I think an app that had some rough edges would've still been very useful. Perfect is the enemy of good and all that. Phone as webcam shouldn't exist at all (how do you even mount it?), but somehow the video and audio quality on phones is still years ahead of what's available on even high-end laptops.
      - Gigachad 3y ago
        Rough edge apps have been around for years. I tried one that worked in the browser and could connect to OBS on your laptop, it was just too cumbersome though. Apple actually did come up with a good solution for mounting the phone. A small disk that connects to the iphone with magsafe and has a flip out tab that can hook on to the top of the macbook. It's surprisingly stable and nice.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  Better late than never. I bought a webcam for those days, but I'm guessing my phone will still have far higher quality.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - rollcat 3y ago
    Exactly. It's not like you suddenly have no more use for video cameras or microphones. The "king" of cheap webcams is still Logitech CX920; anything better than that starts with a separate HDMI capture card and can cost up to an order of magnitude more. Meanwhile you've had a decent camera in your phone all along. Using a good camera for your video call is simply showing respect to the person/people you're talking with.
    - carstenhag 3y ago
      I disagree. The most important thing is voice. In meetings we communicate (hopefully), voice should be the top priority. I know how my colleagues look like.
      - rollcat 3y ago
        You disagreed, yet I've never said that audio is less important. Even flagship smartphones don't have studio microphones with 48v phantom power, 32-bit float, pre-amp gain control, etc - that's something you'd have to invest in separately no matter what. But if you can get better video for free, why wouldn't you?
        earthling8118 3y ago
        You mention that you never said audio is less important, but they never said that you did so. That doesn't mean it can't be disagreed with. I completely disagree that good video is a sign of respect. I consider people wanting video on in the first place to be a sign of disrespect. It is rarely important for getting work done and I see it as a waste of resources.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mholt 3y ago
Too little, too late for me... I hate to be the guy having those "hot takes" or whatever, but hear me out for a sec: I didn't get a cell phone until 2013. (Yes I used land lines until then.) It was a Nexus 4 (still love the grippy sides and sleek glass back). Every 2-3 years I traded up, all the way until Pixel 6. Tomorrow my first iPhone will be delivered. Why? A lot of reasons, but some are: - I can't just plug my Google phone into an external display to mirror it. Uh, hello?? DisplayPort out is explicitly disabled in the source code with no reason given: https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1189998588023234560 https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1189998588023234560 -- yet this works great in other phones. - I can't access my text messages from my Android phone (without a separate app like SMS Backup & Restore) -- go ahead, try it. Yeah, do an adb backup. Maybe rooting your phone would give you access, but it's impossible otherwise AFAIK. And I think rooting your phone deletes everything in the process. - I can't access my phone backup. It's ONLY stored on Google's servers. The only way to even get close is to restore it to a phone. This is a physical device I bought and literally am holding in my hand but can't access all the stuff on it! Did you know you can just plug in an iPhone into Windows or Macs and dump a backup to your computers? It's all right there, text messages, system settings, contacts, photos, databases, EVERYTHING (except maybe hardware-protected keys). It's amazing. - Do I even need to mention all the Google shenanigans? We all know what I'm talking about, right? The mess of messengers... the killing of various services, the lack of support, the stronger integration with ads and tracking. Apple's not perfect either, but I feel like it's worth a shot inside the walled garden for a bit. I like that some of these common sense things are not a problem with iOS: - Display out. - Accessing your own device. - Messaging that actually makes sense. - At least it feels like Apple cares about privacy; counterintuitively, I feel way more in control using Apple products than I do Google ones.
- njroute22 3y ago
  Why do you need to mirror your phone? Why do you want to access your messages? For what purpose? What do you need to backup besides (maybe) photos? Which is easy (drag and drop) anyway. Sounds more like you have some kind of device dependency beyond normality.
  - 3y ago
orbital-decay 3y ago
Most Android phones don't have a good USB controller though, as it's not considered a priority. Without it you'll be restricted to the blocky MJPEG garbage with terribly downsampled chroma squeezed through the USB 2.0 connection, and get the quality equivalent to a laptop webcam.
- ClassyJacket 3y ago
  480mbps isn't enough for good quality video? It's 3.75x the maximum bitrate of a 4K Blu Ray. It should be fine. It can't be lossless, but it should be damn high quality.
  - orbital-decay 3y ago
    I was going to say something about MJPEG, but it looks like UVC supports H.264 for a decade already. I guess I was confused by the cheap USB 2.0 webcams, they mostly use MJPEG and yes it's utter trash. Still, good webcams use USB 3.0 and no chroma subsampling, to avoid recompression and enable certain tricks. I hope the YUV 4:4:4 mode will be supported in this, for those who have the speed and want chromakeys/non-blurry reds.
  - duskwuff 3y ago
    > 480mbps isn't enough for good quality video? It's 3.75x the maximum bitrate of a 4K Blu Ray. Webcams need to be very near real-time to be useful. That severely limits what kinds of compression you can use on the video stream.
    - ClassyJacket 3y ago
      That's absolutely true but I still very much doubt it's so bad that you would exceed 480mbps even on a decent resolution stream. We're not talking multiple orders of magnitude difference. Like... if all else fails just send every frame as a separate image with a fast encoder and you've still got 1.6 megabytes for each. Steam in-home streaming needs to be realtime too, but is very playable, and most people aren't realistically getting 480mbps out of their wifi. 4k I don't know... 1080p no problem. Don't most phones have dedicated hardware video encoders on their SoC now anyway?
cassidyslivers 3y ago
About time I don't have to use 3rd party software often full of bloat to do this task.
- MaxikCZ 3y ago
  Yes, I too prefer 1st party bloat.
minroot 3y ago
When will Android phones get video output on their USB-C port?
- ewoodrich 3y ago
  I can plug my Galaxy S23 into a normal USB-C to HDMI or Displayport dock and use any external screen with Dex. Or do you mean something different? Edit: Just tried it on my dock and it can also mirror vs acting as a separate display via Dex.
  - kiwijamo 3y ago
    This works on my S21 as well. I only found this out today! Very impressive.
- dazhbog 3y ago
  My Oneplus 7T seems to have it but never found a use for it (its just basic screen mirroring). I think Samsung is the only one with a docking UI system (DEX) though
  - semi-extrinsic 3y ago
    Huawei also has it. I used to have a P30 Pro, upgraded to a Pixel 7 Pro just now, and I was actually surprised to find it doesn't support this. It's quite useful sometimes when I'm in a satellite office and I didn't bring a laptop, I can just plug my phone into one of the guest workplace docks and it's quite productive. Eagerly waiting for Android 14 to bring this to the Pixel.
- d3w4s9 3y ago
  Have used it for years. Did you actually try it out?
- numpad0 3y ago
  That's just model dependent. Some supported MHL from microUSB or had HDMI type D even in 3G era
james2doyle 3y ago
I've been using the Camo app for over a year. Works excellent. Even supports viewing the camera over wifi. No cable necessary. It is free for a basic account. Find it here: https://reincubate.com/camo/ https://reincubate.com/camo/
- mattbee 3y ago
  I liked it too, paid for it for a few months. But every so often it would start lagging by about 1000ms. Tthe only solution was to reinstall the Windows drivers. This happened with both iPhone and Android devices, and more than once, so I cancelled when they didn't have a better solution.
  - james2doyle 3y ago
    Ah that sucks. I'm on OSX using an old Android phone. I haven't had any problems with it. I do try to keep both devices updated though
- claar 3y ago
  Agreed, I've used Camo for years daily to use an old iPhone 7 as a webcam. Gives such a better picture than a webcam.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
- saagarjha 3y ago
  Most of them, except for one thread, seem on-topic.
recursive 3y ago
I've been doing this for years. In what way is support not already present?
- gsich 3y ago
  Might be for your device specifically. I don't have the UVC option in the USB settings. Yes, workarounds exist like IP Webcam.
- bigger_inside 3y ago
  yes, both OBS and, as a standalone, DroidCam do this, as android and PC apps. Does this just integrate these apps, or something like it?
  - shihab 3y ago
    Droidcam is the first app in my life I paid money for. I'm not happy with it. On Linux in particular, I have to reinstall it almost every time I update the system. Every so often it doesn't connect on first attempt- so I close it, restart and then it inexplicably starts working. I would probably forgive a more serious bug, but this is just annoying and silly.
    - pony_sheared 3y ago
      I started with Droidcam during the pandemic and switched to Iriun. Currently using it with an old iPhone SE over USB, but also used with Huawei P20 Pro. Not many features, but just works. https://iriun.com/ https://iriun.com/
      - mathfailure 3y ago
        But this doesn't let you use your phone's camera as a webcam on MacOS.
      - a1o 3y ago
        I used iriun a lot, a problem that I have with it is how much my Samsung phone heats up when using a higher resolution. Probably a Samsung/Android problem more than Iriun. I would love to have a phone quality camera in a regular USB webcam.
nebqr 3y ago
This probably makes the 6a (currently $250) the best value webcam on the market.
- craftkiller 3y ago
  If you're willing to wait 6 months you can get the pixel 6a for ~$90 by signing up for a new line at metro by t-mobile, using the new line discount to purchase a pixel 6a while signing up (phone costs $50, first month of service costs $40) and then never renewing for a 2nd month. After 6 months, the phone should automatically carrier unlock according to a very obnoxious deal website that I'm not going to link here because of how obnoxious that site is. Make sure you activate the phone to start the 6-month timer!
- xnx 3y ago
  Pixel 6a prices should drop even further after the Pixel 8 event on October 4th.
sharts 3y ago
Hasn't iOS already had this? Or maybe it was OBS.
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  IIRC, you can only use an iOS device as a webcam for a mac.
  - dhritzkiv 3y ago
    It can also be used for the AppleTV, as of tvOS 17. I believe only for FaceTime, however.
- kimixa 3y ago
  There's already a number of apps in the iOS and android ecosystems that allow this - as far as I can tell this is moving that to default in the OS rather than a third party app.
- kube-system 3y ago
  Yes. If you have an iPhone and a Mac it will just show up as a webcam device automatically. I have found it quite useful when joining a zoom call with a group of people in a breakout room. Prop up your phone somewhere and it works like a conference room camera.
- MBCook 3y ago
  It was added last year in iOS 16. It’s called Continuity Camera. It’s a nice feature. The cameras on any iPhone are WAY better than those built into a Mac. I’m sure that holds for Android/PC.
blinding-streak 3y ago
I'd like to be able to use my Android phone as a dashcam. When will that be available? Seems like a no brainer.
- clumsysmurf 3y ago
  That would be prone to overheating.
  - andrewia 3y ago
    Yep, high-resolution recording while charging, streaming music, and displaying a map will quickly exceed the thermal constraints of any phone. I guess a MagSafe holder with mini sunshade and active cooling fan could help?
    - bmicraft 3y ago
      Wireless charging is just another source of heat. There are clamps that only grip your phone from the side, leaving the back open to dissipate heat.
  - blinding-streak 3y ago
    Except, they're working on it. https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/17/23726967/google-pixel-dashcam-personal-safety-leak https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/17/23726967/google-pixel-das...
    - clumsysmurf 3y ago
      FTA > We don’t know how Google plans on mitigating heat issues or how it deals with the issue of potentially damaging a camera that uses optical image stabilization I think sun sitting the phone, while its doing nothing else but charging is enough to cause concern... guess we'll see.
      - leptons 3y ago
        At some point the phone shuts itself down when it gets too hot. Not ideal to use it as a dashcam, especially if it's also doing navigation and charging.
acjohnson55 3y ago
This is a nice-to-have feature, but most people are going to want to be able to have their phone at hand still while on Zoom. But then again, I suppose most people have an extra phone.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  What do you do with your phone on zoom? I’m not saying it’s wrong or weird. I just don’t do it and I’m curious about how other people use software/computers.
  - f6v 3y ago
    Browse Instagram when someone boring is talking.
  - acjohnson55 3y ago
    Mostly nothing, but sometimes a text comes in or something.
xhfhope 3y ago
why was this not a feature in 2010
- throwaway892238 3y ago
  They've been busy shoving useless software into the device to bloat it enough that we all have to keep buying faster devices every 2 years. Unplanned bloatselescence
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
RadixDLT 3y ago
I guess there are too many apps that already provide this feature, with that being said, webcam feature is only available when you plugin the usb cable into computer.
NamTaf 3y ago
Quite tangential, but during lockdown I was looking for a way to use my iPhone as a webcam and came across this project: https://vdo.ninja/ https://vdo.ninja/ It started out as being a means to send a video feed into OBS[1], which is how I rigged the webcam input, but as the project grew, it expanded to being a way for me to spin up desktop video and audio sharing in a browser, sorta like Zoom, etc. This let me run virtual movie nights with people remotely. Whilst it's possible to use it via the 'create a room' interface, you can also do it all via URL parameters which I found much more flexible and robust. See here[2]. You create source and recipient URLs and then it just automagically makes it all work via WebRTC. I was able to for example make a source that captured my VLC window and sent out the video and audio, and then two destination URLs which received the source video and audio, but also sent their own audio to one another. This meant we could hear and watch the movie but also talk to each other via our microphones. All within browsers. I've got no relation to this project besides thinking it's really awesome. [1]: Used for streaming your computer online, e.g. on Twitch. https://obsproject.com/ https://obsproject.com/ [2]: https://docs.vdo.ninja/master/how-does-it-work https://docs.vdo.ninja/master/how-does-it-work
- w-ll 3y ago
  I mean if you have an iPhone and thats your only Apple device this looks cool, but its kinda crazy Macbooks still ship with 1080p cameras. Not the event this month, but i think the one before that they demoedd using your iphone as camera for facetime on the desktop.
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    The webcams are for videoconferencing. It’s pretty rare for videoconferencing to support better than 1080p30. Apple is not exactly shy about using mediocre parts when it won’t make a difference. What surprised me was how long Apple was on 720p.
    - twobitshifter 3y ago
      Well there’s more you can with more resolution than transmit a bigger picture. Try the iPad camera during FaceTime. That will pan and zoom the view to keep you in focus and it’s only made possible by good resolution and a wide angle camera.
clumsysmurf 3y ago
Two features I would really still like to have in stock Android: * shortcut from off to recording video, immediately (no clicking around the camera app) * stop charging battery at 80% setting (no heuristics, AI, predictive BS).
- smitty1e 3y ago
  What is the motive for > stop charging battery at 80% ...if you don't mind?
  - elkos 3y ago
    Battery health in most cases
  - gabrielhidasy 3y ago
    Lithium batteries degrade faster when very full or very empty. Samsung lets you limit to 85%.
  - clumsysmurf 3y ago
    To extend the life of the battery. If you limit charging to ~ 80% it will get more charge cycles.
  - SobaniBanana 3y ago
    charging the phone all the way up to 100% is less efficient than just charging it to say 80&, it's not linear. That reduction in efficiency creates heat, while your phone is also already working really hard navigating, playing music, blasting the screen at high brightness (assuming you're driving at daytime). All the heat can cause your phone to start performance throttling and could cause it to overheat and shut-down, but it will also hurt your batteries longevity
  - Izkata 3y ago
    Rather than something generic, here's a scenario with made-up numbers to better explain the goal: Charging from 80% to 100% puts more strain on the battery than charging from 60% to 80%, even though it's an addition of 20% each time. So let's say you use about 40% of your battery daily, and charge from 60% to 100% every day, and that drops your total capacity by 10% each year. You'll have 6 years before your battery won't last a whole day. If instead that +40% charge was going between 40% and 80%, the reduced strain might mean you only lose 5% of the total capacity each year. That would get you 8 years before your battery won't last a whole day. Getting your battery to last longer like this also means that a year or two in, if there's a day you expect to need the full capacity, you can just turn off the limit for that day and your battery will last longer than it would have if you never limited it.
amar-laksh 3y ago
The scrcpy project is already great for this: https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy Here's a little script for streaming through your camera on obs: get-adb-devices-list() { adb devices | grep -v "List of devices attached" | grep -v "daemon" | grep -v "^$" | grep -c . } echo "device count: $(get-adb-devices-list)" while [ "$(get-adb-devices-list)" -eq 0 ]; do echo "Waiting for the device..." sleep 0.5 done IP_ADDRESS=$(sudo adb shell ip addr show wlan0 | grep "192.168.." | awk -F ' ' '{print $2}' | cut -d '/' -f1) connect-adb-tcp () { sleep 1 echo "Connect to the device...$IP_ADDRESS" && \ adb tcpip 5555 && \ sudo adb connect "$IP_ADDRESS" } connect-adb-tcp && \ v4l2-ctl --list-devices && \ scrcpy -e --v4l2-sink=/dev/video0 --lock-video-orientation=1 -n -N &> ./log & obs
- chenxiaolong 3y ago
  scrcpy is awesome! Native support for streaming the camera directly (vs. streaming a screen capture of the camera app) is coming soon: https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/pull/4213 https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/pull/4213 For folks willing to build from source, I have an additional commit on top of the PR (linked in the comments) that enables support for Android's constrained high speed capture mode, allowing 120fps/240fps camera streaming. Not the most useful for meetings, but enables things like capturing high frame rate mixed reality VR footage. As far as I'm aware, there's no other Android webcam app, proprietary or open source, that can do anything above 60fps.
  - imjonse 3y ago
    Do you know if there are any devices where the high FPS mode can be used not only for capture but also for the image analysis use case?
    - chenxiaolong 3y ago
      I don't think this is possible, at least not directly. My understanding is that there's a special optimized path for CameraConstrainedHighSpeedCaptureSession recording to MediaCodec surfaces backed by a hardware encoder. If you capture to a different type of surface, the frame rate will likely drop to 60 or lower (assuming it's even allowed--I have not tested). I'm not too familiar with image analysis, but if it's acceptable to work on lossy frames and to take a small hit to latency, you could record to a MediaCodec hardware encoder and then immediately send the output to another MediaCodec instance to decode it.
encypruon 3y ago
AFAIK with the Nokia N900 this was possible in 2009 using gstreamer. I never actually used it to create a video device but I assume that the v4l2sink was already a thing back then. I did use it quite a few times for streaming to remote windows and OpenCV. Only good phone I ever had. I wish things were as easy on Android devices, but somehow they almost never are.
- poisonborz 3y ago
  Actually sooner than that, on Symbian devices.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  I'd really love devices & software that try to emphasize possibility & malleability. The modern consumer systems are rigid & huge on guard rails, making sure the user has a straightforward experience. That's a hard task, worth of respect too. But it feels like this hardline conservative outlook for software has utterly dominated what's gotten built for a long time now, with less and less computing that is interested willing or able to give power users solid ground & footing. Tech keeps increasing the distance, keeps becoming more esoteric, ironically because it keeps losing on-roads to becoming an expert or explorer if you're interested in going further.
bobse 3y ago
What is DroidCam?
iAkashPaul 3y ago
Wish there was a ROM project that would let us repurpose old phones more easily into IPCAMs, Trackpads, Webcams etc more easily
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
I've been quite disappointed trying the other thing, trying to get my Android phone to use a webcam. It seems to work in like 1/4 apps I try. It doesn't work in Chrome. It's just so frustrating because this is such a solved problem for Linux / FreeDesktop.
baby 3y ago
If it’s anything like iphone’s continuity thing then I hope it doesn’t suck as much. It’s hard to use and the thing will constantly get turned on and off
dev213 3y ago
R.I.P DroidCam
crabbone 3y ago
I just bought my wife a new (well, refurbished) ThinkPad. I went through its BIOS menus to... well, just in case there's anything weird. Also, you know, to disable "secure" boot. And, dear lord... there's so much Intel <three-letter-acronym> stuff that simply shouldn't be there, and some of it is even impossible to disable :( All sorts of non-consensual tracking marketed as "anti-theft" or "IT remote service support". And that's on a ThinkPad, which, at least in my memory, used to be the friendliest brand for Linux among laptops... Anyways, back to Android. Well, last thing I want it to be is a Web cam. There's even an idiom in English "butt-dialing" that stands for accidentally calling someone w/o the caller being aware of them calling them. But, with a Web cam, and the glorious Web security, and proprietary drivers... now you'll have a chance to... broadcast butt-dial? That doesn't sound as snappy though. Let's wait for the first victim, I guess, and see how they call it.
- SamuelAdams 3y ago
  If your threat model includes Intel IME, why did you buy an Intel laptop? There are plenty of AMD laptops available today, some are even available as a Thinkpad.
  - crabbone 3y ago
    I didn't know. Didn't do enough research. Guess, next time I'll try AMD.
  - iamtedd 3y ago
    What, and be subject to the AMD PSP?
- NavinF 3y ago
  How exactly are you gonna butt-dial with a USB webcam? Article says this feature requires a USB cable and has nothing to do with "glorious Web security". BTW I highly doubt that toggling settings in your BIOS is going to stop this supposed non-consensual tracking. But hey, if the placebo helps you feel better
  - 3y ago
ulfw 3y ago
Ah yes. Another Google product copying iPhone and others. I can't even remember when I last saw creativity come out of that place.
- theragra 3y ago
  To refresh your memory, android supported external gps receivers since forever, as it also did with embedding geolocation into photos. Iphone 3g, for example, did not support first, and supported second in an awful limited way. I can find many more examples, but last iphone I owned was 3g.
  - ulfw 3y ago
    The iPhone 3G was released in July 2008, 15 years ago. The first EVER Android phone release was the Dream, which came out in September 2008. It had very little to do with today's Android. I was there. I know.
tylerhannan 3y ago
finally!
deathgripsss 3y ago
This is the sort of thing android should lean into heavily to differentiate itself from apple as I can't see apple supporting this kind of thing outside of their écosystème.
david_acm 3y ago
Link 404s for me
tempodox 3y ago
If Apple had this for iOS, I could redeploy several decommissioned iPhones.
- drbaba 3y ago
  Apple already did introduce this for iOS 1-2 years ago (assuming you have an iPhone and a Mac). I know because I’ve activated the feature by accident a few times.
r_singh 3y ago
I know it’s not exactly related but I have to say that it sucks that we can’t repurpose old iPhones even though they are full blown computers. Really hope this changes in future….

453 points by amadeuspagel 3y ago

This is a welcome addition, companies spend time and effort building cameras with tracking and portrait mode etc.. I just feel this feature comes a bit too late where there was a scramble during the pandemic to get webcams as everything suddenly went remote. Would have been good to have shipped this feature back then instead of buying 3rd party apps that provided this feature.

Justsignedup 3y ago
It is a trade-off. You get some things, and you get google's shit product processes.
- smitty1e 3y ago
  Tell me that you're not still bitter over Google Reader. Like me.
  - Justsignedup 3y ago
    HA!!!! nah, but since i tried switching my friends to hangouts the first time, i never trusted google with a product release ever.
xnx 3y ago
Exactly. I for sure would've thought this would be a "20% time" app as lockdowns became common. Wyze figured out how to allow its security cameras to be used as webcams in March 2020! https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/31/21202022/wyze-firmware-update-webcam-security-camera-transform-solution-guide https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/31/21202022/wyze-firmware-up...
- sleepyxuras91 3y ago
  Canon also released an app during lockdown to make your DSLR or mirrorless camera into a webcam too. Shocking how quick companies can do things when a global pandemic pushes them after years of odd tethering and window screen capturing mess I've had with canon before hand for live streaming.
  - __mharrison__ 3y ago
    Sadly this app doesn't work with modern Macs and Canon had y their head in the same and refuses to address it. I ended up getting a Sony mirrorless for a webcam. (Might seem like overkill but I spend a good deal of my time teaching in front of a camera.)
- Gigachad 3y ago
  Its like a 5 hour job to get something that technically works and then a 10,000 hour job to get something that works flawlessly. The Apple integration with the iphone and macbook is the most seamless setup I've seen so far but I've still gone back to just using the built in webcam because its too fiddly to put my phone up on the screen and occasionally have issues where it won't connect. Phone as webcam just doesn't seem like a long term solution, eventually built in webcams will be cheap and good enough. And tbh I find the built in one on the macbook to be bordering on good enough once you consider how compressed and tiny the output will be on the other persons screen.
  - xnx 3y ago
    MVP to full product is definitely the bigger part of the work. In the environment of early COVID, I think an app that had some rough edges would've still been very useful. Perfect is the enemy of good and all that. Phone as webcam shouldn't exist at all (how do you even mount it?), but somehow the video and audio quality on phones is still years ahead of what's available on even high-end laptops.
    - Gigachad 3y ago
      Rough edge apps have been around for years. I tried one that worked in the browser and could connect to OBS on your laptop, it was just too cumbersome though. Apple actually did come up with a good solution for mounting the phone. A small disk that connects to the iphone with magsafe and has a flip out tab that can hook on to the top of the macbook. It's surprisingly stable and nice.
_ea1k 3y ago
Better late than never. I bought a webcam for those days, but I'm guessing my phone will still have far higher quality.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- rollcat 3y ago
  Exactly. It's not like you suddenly have no more use for video cameras or microphones. The "king" of cheap webcams is still Logitech CX920; anything better than that starts with a separate HDMI capture card and can cost up to an order of magnitude more. Meanwhile you've had a decent camera in your phone all along. Using a good camera for your video call is simply showing respect to the person/people you're talking with.
  - carstenhag 3y ago
    I disagree. The most important thing is voice. In meetings we communicate (hopefully), voice should be the top priority. I know how my colleagues look like.
    - rollcat 3y ago
      You disagreed, yet I've never said that audio is less important. Even flagship smartphones don't have studio microphones with 48v phantom power, 32-bit float, pre-amp gain control, etc - that's something you'd have to invest in separately no matter what. But if you can get better video for free, why wouldn't you?
      - earthling8118 3y ago
        You mention that you never said audio is less important, but they never said that you did so. That doesn't mean it can't be disagreed with. I completely disagree that good video is a sign of respect. I consider people wanting video on in the first place to be a sign of disrespect. It is rarely important for getting work done and I see it as a waste of resources.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

mholt 3y ago

Too little, too late for me... I hate to be the guy having those "hot takes" or whatever, but hear me out for a sec: I didn't get a cell phone until 2013. (Yes I used land lines until then.) It was a Nexus 4 (still love the grippy sides and sleek glass back). Every 2-3 years I traded up, all the way until Pixel 6. Tomorrow my first iPhone will be delivered. Why? A lot of reasons, but some are: - I can't just plug my Google phone into an external display to mirror it. Uh, hello?? DisplayPort out is explicitly disabled in the source code with no reason given: https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1189998588023234560 https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1189998588023234560 -- yet this works great in other phones. - I can't access my text messages from my Android phone (without a separate app like SMS Backup & Restore) -- go ahead, try it. Yeah, do an adb backup. Maybe rooting your phone would give you access, but it's impossible otherwise AFAIK. And I think rooting your phone deletes everything in the process. - I can't access my phone backup. It's ONLY stored on Google's servers. The only way to even get close is to restore it to a phone. This is a physical device I bought and literally am holding in my hand but can't access all the stuff on it! Did you know you can just plug in an iPhone into Windows or Macs and dump a backup to your computers? It's all right there, text messages, system settings, contacts, photos, databases, EVERYTHING (except maybe hardware-protected keys). It's amazing. - Do I even need to mention all the Google shenanigans? We all know what I'm talking about, right? The mess of messengers... the killing of various services, the lack of support, the stronger integration with ads and tracking. Apple's not perfect either, but I feel like it's worth a shot inside the walled garden for a bit. I like that some of these common sense things are not a problem with iOS: - Display out. - Accessing your own device. - Messaging that actually makes sense. - At least it feels like Apple cares about privacy; counterintuitively, I feel way more in control using Apple products than I do Google ones.

njroute22 3y ago
Why do you need to mirror your phone? Why do you want to access your messages? For what purpose? What do you need to backup besides (maybe) photos? Which is easy (drag and drop) anyway. Sounds more like you have some kind of device dependency beyond normality.
- 3y ago

orbital-decay 3y ago

Most Android phones don't have a good USB controller though, as it's not considered a priority. Without it you'll be restricted to the blocky MJPEG garbage with terribly downsampled chroma squeezed through the USB 2.0 connection, and get the quality equivalent to a laptop webcam.

ClassyJacket 3y ago
480mbps isn't enough for good quality video? It's 3.75x the maximum bitrate of a 4K Blu Ray. It should be fine. It can't be lossless, but it should be damn high quality.
- orbital-decay 3y ago
  I was going to say something about MJPEG, but it looks like UVC supports H.264 for a decade already. I guess I was confused by the cheap USB 2.0 webcams, they mostly use MJPEG and yes it's utter trash. Still, good webcams use USB 3.0 and no chroma subsampling, to avoid recompression and enable certain tricks. I hope the YUV 4:4:4 mode will be supported in this, for those who have the speed and want chromakeys/non-blurry reds.
- duskwuff 3y ago
  > 480mbps isn't enough for good quality video? It's 3.75x the maximum bitrate of a 4K Blu Ray. Webcams need to be very near real-time to be useful. That severely limits what kinds of compression you can use on the video stream.
  - ClassyJacket 3y ago
    That's absolutely true but I still very much doubt it's so bad that you would exceed 480mbps even on a decent resolution stream. We're not talking multiple orders of magnitude difference. Like... if all else fails just send every frame as a separate image with a fast encoder and you've still got 1.6 megabytes for each. Steam in-home streaming needs to be realtime too, but is very playable, and most people aren't realistically getting 480mbps out of their wifi. 4k I don't know... 1080p no problem. Don't most phones have dedicated hardware video encoders on their SoC now anyway?

cassidyslivers 3y ago

About time I don't have to use 3rd party software often full of bloat to do this task.

MaxikCZ 3y ago
Yes, I too prefer 1st party bloat.

minroot 3y ago

When will Android phones get video output on their USB-C port?

ewoodrich 3y ago
I can plug my Galaxy S23 into a normal USB-C to HDMI or Displayport dock and use any external screen with Dex. Or do you mean something different? Edit: Just tried it on my dock and it can also mirror vs acting as a separate display via Dex.
- kiwijamo 3y ago
  This works on my S21 as well. I only found this out today! Very impressive.
dazhbog 3y ago
My Oneplus 7T seems to have it but never found a use for it (its just basic screen mirroring). I think Samsung is the only one with a docking UI system (DEX) though
- semi-extrinsic 3y ago
  Huawei also has it. I used to have a P30 Pro, upgraded to a Pixel 7 Pro just now, and I was actually surprised to find it doesn't support this. It's quite useful sometimes when I'm in a satellite office and I didn't bring a laptop, I can just plug my phone into one of the guest workplace docks and it's quite productive. Eagerly waiting for Android 14 to bring this to the Pixel.
d3w4s9 3y ago
Have used it for years. Did you actually try it out?
numpad0 3y ago
That's just model dependent. Some supported MHL from microUSB or had HDMI type D even in 3G era

james2doyle 3y ago

I've been using the Camo app for over a year. Works excellent. Even supports viewing the camera over wifi. No cable necessary. It is free for a basic account. Find it here: https://reincubate.com/camo/ https://reincubate.com/camo/

mattbee 3y ago
I liked it too, paid for it for a few months. But every so often it would start lagging by about 1000ms. Tthe only solution was to reinstall the Windows drivers. This happened with both iPhone and Android devices, and more than once, so I cancelled when they didn't have a better solution.
- james2doyle 3y ago
  Ah that sucks. I'm on OSX using an old Android phone. I haven't had any problems with it. I do try to keep both devices updated though
claar 3y ago
Agreed, I've used Camo for years daily to use an old iPhone 7 as a webcam. Gives such a better picture than a webcam.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

saagarjha 3y ago
Most of them, except for one thread, seem on-topic.

recursive 3y ago

I've been doing this for years. In what way is support not already present?

gsich 3y ago
Might be for your device specifically. I don't have the UVC option in the USB settings. Yes, workarounds exist like IP Webcam.
bigger_inside 3y ago
yes, both OBS and, as a standalone, DroidCam do this, as android and PC apps. Does this just integrate these apps, or something like it?
- shihab 3y ago
  Droidcam is the first app in my life I paid money for. I'm not happy with it. On Linux in particular, I have to reinstall it almost every time I update the system. Every so often it doesn't connect on first attempt- so I close it, restart and then it inexplicably starts working. I would probably forgive a more serious bug, but this is just annoying and silly.
  - pony_sheared 3y ago
    I started with Droidcam during the pandemic and switched to Iriun. Currently using it with an old iPhone SE over USB, but also used with Huawei P20 Pro. Not many features, but just works. https://iriun.com/ https://iriun.com/
    - mathfailure 3y ago
      But this doesn't let you use your phone's camera as a webcam on MacOS.
    - a1o 3y ago
      I used iriun a lot, a problem that I have with it is how much my Samsung phone heats up when using a higher resolution. Probably a Samsung/Android problem more than Iriun. I would love to have a phone quality camera in a regular USB webcam.

nebqr 3y ago

This probably makes the 6a (currently $250) the best value webcam on the market.

craftkiller 3y ago
If you're willing to wait 6 months you can get the pixel 6a for ~$90 by signing up for a new line at metro by t-mobile, using the new line discount to purchase a pixel 6a while signing up (phone costs $50, first month of service costs $40) and then never renewing for a 2nd month. After 6 months, the phone should automatically carrier unlock according to a very obnoxious deal website that I'm not going to link here because of how obnoxious that site is. Make sure you activate the phone to start the 6-month timer!
xnx 3y ago
Pixel 6a prices should drop even further after the Pixel 8 event on October 4th.

sharts 3y ago

Hasn't iOS already had this? Or maybe it was OBS.

amadeuspagel 3y ago
IIRC, you can only use an iOS device as a webcam for a mac.
- dhritzkiv 3y ago
  It can also be used for the AppleTV, as of tvOS 17. I believe only for FaceTime, however.
kimixa 3y ago
There's already a number of apps in the iOS and android ecosystems that allow this - as far as I can tell this is moving that to default in the OS rather than a third party app.
kube-system 3y ago
Yes. If you have an iPhone and a Mac it will just show up as a webcam device automatically. I have found it quite useful when joining a zoom call with a group of people in a breakout room. Prop up your phone somewhere and it works like a conference room camera.
MBCook 3y ago
It was added last year in iOS 16. It’s called Continuity Camera. It’s a nice feature. The cameras on any iPhone are WAY better than those built into a Mac. I’m sure that holds for Android/PC.

blinding-streak 3y ago

I'd like to be able to use my Android phone as a dashcam. When will that be available? Seems like a no brainer.

clumsysmurf 3y ago
That would be prone to overheating.
- andrewia 3y ago
  Yep, high-resolution recording while charging, streaming music, and displaying a map will quickly exceed the thermal constraints of any phone. I guess a MagSafe holder with mini sunshade and active cooling fan could help?
  - bmicraft 3y ago
    Wireless charging is just another source of heat. There are clamps that only grip your phone from the side, leaving the back open to dissipate heat.
- blinding-streak 3y ago
  Except, they're working on it. https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/17/23726967/google-pixel-dashcam-personal-safety-leak https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/17/23726967/google-pixel-das...
  - clumsysmurf 3y ago
    FTA > We don’t know how Google plans on mitigating heat issues or how it deals with the issue of potentially damaging a camera that uses optical image stabilization I think sun sitting the phone, while its doing nothing else but charging is enough to cause concern... guess we'll see.
    - leptons 3y ago
      At some point the phone shuts itself down when it gets too hot. Not ideal to use it as a dashcam, especially if it's also doing navigation and charging.

acjohnson55 3y ago

This is a nice-to-have feature, but most people are going to want to be able to have their phone at hand still while on Zoom. But then again, I suppose most people have an extra phone.

steve_adams_86 3y ago
What do you do with your phone on zoom? I’m not saying it’s wrong or weird. I just don’t do it and I’m curious about how other people use software/computers.
- f6v 3y ago
  Browse Instagram when someone boring is talking.
- acjohnson55 3y ago
  Mostly nothing, but sometimes a text comes in or something.

xhfhope 3y ago

why was this not a feature in 2010

throwaway892238 3y ago
They've been busy shoving useless software into the device to bloat it enough that we all have to keep buying faster devices every 2 years. Unplanned bloatselescence
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

RadixDLT 3y ago

I guess there are too many apps that already provide this feature, with that being said, webcam feature is only available when you plugin the usb cable into computer.

NamTaf 3y ago

Quite tangential, but during lockdown I was looking for a way to use my iPhone as a webcam and came across this project: https://vdo.ninja/ https://vdo.ninja/ It started out as being a means to send a video feed into OBS[1], which is how I rigged the webcam input, but as the project grew, it expanded to being a way for me to spin up desktop video and audio sharing in a browser, sorta like Zoom, etc. This let me run virtual movie nights with people remotely. Whilst it's possible to use it via the 'create a room' interface, you can also do it all via URL parameters which I found much more flexible and robust. See here[2]. You create source and recipient URLs and then it just automagically makes it all work via WebRTC. I was able to for example make a source that captured my VLC window and sent out the video and audio, and then two destination URLs which received the source video and audio, but also sent their own audio to one another. This meant we could hear and watch the movie but also talk to each other via our microphones. All within browsers. I've got no relation to this project besides thinking it's really awesome. [1]: Used for streaming your computer online, e.g. on Twitch. https://obsproject.com/ https://obsproject.com/ [2]: https://docs.vdo.ninja/master/how-does-it-work https://docs.vdo.ninja/master/how-does-it-work

w-ll 3y ago
I mean if you have an iPhone and thats your only Apple device this looks cool, but its kinda crazy Macbooks still ship with 1080p cameras. Not the event this month, but i think the one before that they demoedd using your iphone as camera for facetime on the desktop.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  The webcams are for videoconferencing. It’s pretty rare for videoconferencing to support better than 1080p30. Apple is not exactly shy about using mediocre parts when it won’t make a difference. What surprised me was how long Apple was on 720p.
  - twobitshifter 3y ago
    Well there’s more you can with more resolution than transmit a bigger picture. Try the iPad camera during FaceTime. That will pan and zoom the view to keep you in focus and it’s only made possible by good resolution and a wide angle camera.

clumsysmurf 3y ago

Two features I would really still like to have in stock Android: * shortcut from off to recording video, immediately (no clicking around the camera app) * stop charging battery at 80% setting (no heuristics, AI, predictive BS).

smitty1e 3y ago
What is the motive for > stop charging battery at 80% ...if you don't mind?
- elkos 3y ago
  Battery health in most cases
- gabrielhidasy 3y ago
  Lithium batteries degrade faster when very full or very empty. Samsung lets you limit to 85%.
- clumsysmurf 3y ago
  To extend the life of the battery. If you limit charging to ~ 80% it will get more charge cycles.
- SobaniBanana 3y ago
  charging the phone all the way up to 100% is less efficient than just charging it to say 80&, it's not linear. That reduction in efficiency creates heat, while your phone is also already working really hard navigating, playing music, blasting the screen at high brightness (assuming you're driving at daytime). All the heat can cause your phone to start performance throttling and could cause it to overheat and shut-down, but it will also hurt your batteries longevity
- Izkata 3y ago
  Rather than something generic, here's a scenario with made-up numbers to better explain the goal: Charging from 80% to 100% puts more strain on the battery than charging from 60% to 80%, even though it's an addition of 20% each time. So let's say you use about 40% of your battery daily, and charge from 60% to 100% every day, and that drops your total capacity by 10% each year. You'll have 6 years before your battery won't last a whole day. If instead that +40% charge was going between 40% and 80%, the reduced strain might mean you only lose 5% of the total capacity each year. That would get you 8 years before your battery won't last a whole day. Getting your battery to last longer like this also means that a year or two in, if there's a day you expect to need the full capacity, you can just turn off the limit for that day and your battery will last longer than it would have if you never limited it.

amar-laksh 3y ago

The scrcpy project is already great for this: https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy Here's a little script for streaming through your camera on obs: get-adb-devices-list() { adb devices | grep -v "List of devices attached" | grep -v "daemon" | grep -v "^$" | grep -c . } echo "device count: $(get-adb-devices-list)" while [ "$(get-adb-devices-list)" -eq 0 ]; do echo "Waiting for the device..." sleep 0.5 done IP_ADDRESS=$(sudo adb shell ip addr show wlan0 | grep "192.168.." | awk -F ' ' '{print $2}' | cut -d '/' -f1) connect-adb-tcp () { sleep 1 echo "Connect to the device...$IP_ADDRESS" && \ adb tcpip 5555 && \ sudo adb connect "$IP_ADDRESS" } connect-adb-tcp && \ v4l2-ctl --list-devices && \ scrcpy -e --v4l2-sink=/dev/video0 --lock-video-orientation=1 -n -N &> ./log & obs

chenxiaolong 3y ago
scrcpy is awesome! Native support for streaming the camera directly (vs. streaming a screen capture of the camera app) is coming soon: https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/pull/4213 https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/pull/4213 For folks willing to build from source, I have an additional commit on top of the PR (linked in the comments) that enables support for Android's constrained high speed capture mode, allowing 120fps/240fps camera streaming. Not the most useful for meetings, but enables things like capturing high frame rate mixed reality VR footage. As far as I'm aware, there's no other Android webcam app, proprietary or open source, that can do anything above 60fps.
- imjonse 3y ago
  Do you know if there are any devices where the high FPS mode can be used not only for capture but also for the image analysis use case?
  - chenxiaolong 3y ago
    I don't think this is possible, at least not directly. My understanding is that there's a special optimized path for CameraConstrainedHighSpeedCaptureSession recording to MediaCodec surfaces backed by a hardware encoder. If you capture to a different type of surface, the frame rate will likely drop to 60 or lower (assuming it's even allowed--I have not tested). I'm not too familiar with image analysis, but if it's acceptable to work on lossy frames and to take a small hit to latency, you could record to a MediaCodec hardware encoder and then immediately send the output to another MediaCodec instance to decode it.

encypruon 3y ago

AFAIK with the Nokia N900 this was possible in 2009 using gstreamer. I never actually used it to create a video device but I assume that the v4l2sink was already a thing back then. I did use it quite a few times for streaming to remote windows and OpenCV. Only good phone I ever had. I wish things were as easy on Android devices, but somehow they almost never are.

poisonborz 3y ago
Actually sooner than that, on Symbian devices.
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
I'd really love devices & software that try to emphasize possibility & malleability. The modern consumer systems are rigid & huge on guard rails, making sure the user has a straightforward experience. That's a hard task, worth of respect too. But it feels like this hardline conservative outlook for software has utterly dominated what's gotten built for a long time now, with less and less computing that is interested willing or able to give power users solid ground & footing. Tech keeps increasing the distance, keeps becoming more esoteric, ironically because it keeps losing on-roads to becoming an expert or explorer if you're interested in going further.

bobse 3y ago

What is DroidCam?

iAkashPaul 3y ago

Wish there was a ROM project that would let us repurpose old phones more easily into IPCAMs, Trackpads, Webcams etc more easily

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

I've been quite disappointed trying the other thing, trying to get my Android phone to use a webcam. It seems to work in like 1/4 apps I try. It doesn't work in Chrome. It's just so frustrating because this is such a solved problem for Linux / FreeDesktop.

baby 3y ago

If it’s anything like iphone’s continuity thing then I hope it doesn’t suck as much. It’s hard to use and the thing will constantly get turned on and off

dev213 3y ago

R.I.P DroidCam

crabbone 3y ago

I just bought my wife a new (well, refurbished) ThinkPad. I went through its BIOS menus to... well, just in case there's anything weird. Also, you know, to disable "secure" boot. And, dear lord... there's so much Intel <three-letter-acronym> stuff that simply shouldn't be there, and some of it is even impossible to disable :( All sorts of non-consensual tracking marketed as "anti-theft" or "IT remote service support". And that's on a ThinkPad, which, at least in my memory, used to be the friendliest brand for Linux among laptops... Anyways, back to Android. Well, last thing I want it to be is a Web cam. There's even an idiom in English "butt-dialing" that stands for accidentally calling someone w/o the caller being aware of them calling them. But, with a Web cam, and the glorious Web security, and proprietary drivers... now you'll have a chance to... broadcast butt-dial? That doesn't sound as snappy though. Let's wait for the first victim, I guess, and see how they call it.

SamuelAdams 3y ago
If your threat model includes Intel IME, why did you buy an Intel laptop? There are plenty of AMD laptops available today, some are even available as a Thinkpad.
- crabbone 3y ago
  I didn't know. Didn't do enough research. Guess, next time I'll try AMD.
- iamtedd 3y ago
  What, and be subject to the AMD PSP?
NavinF 3y ago
How exactly are you gonna butt-dial with a USB webcam? Article says this feature requires a USB cable and has nothing to do with "glorious Web security". BTW I highly doubt that toggling settings in your BIOS is going to stop this supposed non-consensual tracking. But hey, if the placebo helps you feel better
- 3y ago

ulfw 3y ago

Ah yes. Another Google product copying iPhone and others. I can't even remember when I last saw creativity come out of that place.

theragra 3y ago
To refresh your memory, android supported external gps receivers since forever, as it also did with embedding geolocation into photos. Iphone 3g, for example, did not support first, and supported second in an awful limited way. I can find many more examples, but last iphone I owned was 3g.
- ulfw 3y ago
  The iPhone 3G was released in July 2008, 15 years ago. The first EVER Android phone release was the Dream, which came out in September 2008. It had very little to do with today's Android. I was there. I know.

tylerhannan 3y ago

finally!

deathgripsss 3y ago

This is the sort of thing android should lean into heavily to differentiate itself from apple as I can't see apple supporting this kind of thing outside of their écosystème.

david_acm 3y ago

Link 404s for me

tempodox 3y ago

If Apple had this for iOS, I could redeploy several decommissioned iPhones.

drbaba 3y ago
Apple already did introduce this for iOS 1-2 years ago (assuming you have an iPhone and a Mac). I know because I’ve activated the feature by accident a few times.

r_singh 3y ago

I know it’s not exactly related but I have to say that it sucks that we can’t repurpose old iPhones even though they are full blown computers. Really hope this changes in future….