6 ms·

Scrcpy 2.2 adds Android camera mirroring

138 points by rom1v 3y ago

arcanemachiner 3y ago
Such a fine piece of software.
- SushiHippie 3y ago
  Absolutely, it was a blast to use this in school to control the smartboards where you could enable adb on them. And it worked so well, I could write on the smartboard with my touchscreen laptop.
Scene_Cast2 3y ago
Android 14 was originally supposed to add webcam functionality (IIRC it added an "act as a webcam" option when plugging the phone in via USB in the Betas). The speculation is that although it was removed from the final release, it might be added in a December update.
- mcny 3y ago
  Does that mean effectively it will only be available for devices that release with Android 15 (ignoring pixels)? Edit: I have a OnePlus nord n30 5G that released with Android 13. Is it eligible for this feature? Iirc OnePlus said it will only give this budget phone one (1) version upgrade so wondering if a December feature drop counts as a second upgrade… :( Maybe won’t even matter if this requires specialized hardware :(
  - mhitza 3y ago
    Maybe by that time the'll be a LineageOS rom for your phone so you aren't tied to OnePlus limited support policy
  - Scene_Cast2 3y ago
    My source: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/178mxsi/what_happened_to_using_your_phone_as_a_usb_webcam/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/178mxsi/what_h... Make of that what you will.
- skiman10 3y ago
  It's live and working in the qpr1 beta so it'll roll out to stable in December.
jampekka 3y ago
Scrpy is awesome and one of those rare pieces of software that has a clear and powerful thing to do and does it so well you get to forget it's even there. Essentially you get the feeling that this is how it should work. But at the same time I find it a bit sad example of how much effort to and how much corner case fiddling such conceptually very simple tasks have to take. Caricatyring here, but it is essentially just blitting pixels over a network connection. I don't think it should be that hard a task with a more reasonable underlying stack. Plan 9 (and probably many other sadly forgotten systems) showed how something like scrcpy can fall out more or less automatically from a better designed system. Maybe I'm underestimating some fundamental complications, but I can't help but feel something has gone very wrong with how we do things with computers. Maybe something like worse is better on piles of previous worse is better.
- jayd16 3y ago
  I think you're taking for granted just how performance intensive this is. For example, "Just a blit" is a full screen draw worth of pixel operations on a hardware platform that is known to have pixel draw at a premium.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    I don't understand this comment. It's a marvel of course how far we have come, but what today is so intensive? The (old!) Apple iPad cable runs BSD Unix and does real time video encoding.
    - refulgentis 3y ago
      Correct, you're violently agreeing, _they embed a whole *NIX computer in the cable to make it happen_. They were replying to someone saying why does everyone make it so complicated. Refer to my comment for the math on why its intensive
      - actionfromafar 3y ago
        Are you violently agreeing with me now? :-)
clumsysmurf 3y ago
Would love to see official Mac binaries along with the Windows ones, that are up to date, etc.
- TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
  https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/scrcpy https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/scrcpy
mathfailure 3y ago
Which camera app will that use? Can I make it use Vector Camera[1] instead of built-in? So that the picture would be modified by the app, rather than go 'raw' from the camera? 1 - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.dozingcatsoftware.vectorcamera/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.dozingcatsoftware.vector...
- rom1v 3y ago
  It calls the Android camera2 API directly (without any app).
- charcircuit 3y ago
  For that you can use normal screen mirroring and open the camera app of your choice.
JeremyNT 3y ago
This software just saved my bacon! I dropped my phone and the screen broke. The touchscreen worked, but no backlight. Luckily I had enabled Android debugging. It took a bit of trial and error but I managed to unlock the phone and then accept the adb key from my laptop. After that, scrcpy let me grab all my files and transfer everything to my new phone. If you have an android device take a few minutes to get scrcpy set up. It just might let you recover from a dead screen some day.
- tjoff 3y ago
  Yes, it is quite good for rescuing data etc. because in a lot of cases it is the screen that fails. In your case where the backlight dies it often helps to shine a flashlight on the screen and it will usually become more intelligible. One thing to keep in mind is that android will revoke saved debug-computers after 7 days or something meaning you have to press a popup to accept the connection. You can turn that off in the developer options and then you won't need any interactions on the device to start scrcpy (as longs as it is a computer you've used before with adb).
- extraduder_ire 3y ago
  I know my device can do HDMI out and USB at the same time over the type-c port, so that's my main plan if I end up with a destroyed screen. I also have kdeconnect installed on everything, but android will remove its permissions if I don't use it often enough.
  - JeremyNT 3y ago
    > I also have kdeconnect installed on everything, but android will remove its permissions if I don't use it often enough. Kde connect is also great! You can prevent Android from revoking permissions under the app info menu. It's labeled as "pause app activity if unused."

138 points by rom1v 3y ago

arcanemachiner 3y ago

Such a fine piece of software.

SushiHippie 3y ago
Absolutely, it was a blast to use this in school to control the smartboards where you could enable adb on them. And it worked so well, I could write on the smartboard with my touchscreen laptop.

Scene_Cast2 3y ago

Android 14 was originally supposed to add webcam functionality (IIRC it added an "act as a webcam" option when plugging the phone in via USB in the Betas). The speculation is that although it was removed from the final release, it might be added in a December update.

mcny 3y ago
Does that mean effectively it will only be available for devices that release with Android 15 (ignoring pixels)? Edit: I have a OnePlus nord n30 5G that released with Android 13. Is it eligible for this feature? Iirc OnePlus said it will only give this budget phone one (1) version upgrade so wondering if a December feature drop counts as a second upgrade… :( Maybe won’t even matter if this requires specialized hardware :(
- mhitza 3y ago
  Maybe by that time the'll be a LineageOS rom for your phone so you aren't tied to OnePlus limited support policy
- Scene_Cast2 3y ago
  My source: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/178mxsi/what_happened_to_using_your_phone_as_a_usb_webcam/ https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/178mxsi/what_h... Make of that what you will.
skiman10 3y ago
It's live and working in the qpr1 beta so it'll roll out to stable in December.

jampekka 3y ago

Scrpy is awesome and one of those rare pieces of software that has a clear and powerful thing to do and does it so well you get to forget it's even there. Essentially you get the feeling that this is how it should work. But at the same time I find it a bit sad example of how much effort to and how much corner case fiddling such conceptually very simple tasks have to take. Caricatyring here, but it is essentially just blitting pixels over a network connection. I don't think it should be that hard a task with a more reasonable underlying stack. Plan 9 (and probably many other sadly forgotten systems) showed how something like scrcpy can fall out more or less automatically from a better designed system. Maybe I'm underestimating some fundamental complications, but I can't help but feel something has gone very wrong with how we do things with computers. Maybe something like worse is better on piles of previous worse is better.

jayd16 3y ago
I think you're taking for granted just how performance intensive this is. For example, "Just a blit" is a full screen draw worth of pixel operations on a hardware platform that is known to have pixel draw at a premium.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  I don't understand this comment. It's a marvel of course how far we have come, but what today is so intensive? The (old!) Apple iPad cable runs BSD Unix and does real time video encoding.
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    Correct, you're violently agreeing, _they embed a whole *NIX computer in the cable to make it happen_. They were replying to someone saying why does everyone make it so complicated. Refer to my comment for the math on why its intensive
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      Are you violently agreeing with me now? :-)

clumsysmurf 3y ago

Would love to see official Mac binaries along with the Windows ones, that are up to date, etc.

TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/scrcpy https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/scrcpy

mathfailure 3y ago

Which camera app will that use? Can I make it use Vector Camera[1] instead of built-in? So that the picture would be modified by the app, rather than go 'raw' from the camera? 1 - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.dozingcatsoftware.vectorcamera/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.dozingcatsoftware.vector...

rom1v 3y ago
It calls the Android camera2 API directly (without any app).
charcircuit 3y ago
For that you can use normal screen mirroring and open the camera app of your choice.

JeremyNT 3y ago

This software just saved my bacon! I dropped my phone and the screen broke. The touchscreen worked, but no backlight. Luckily I had enabled Android debugging. It took a bit of trial and error but I managed to unlock the phone and then accept the adb key from my laptop. After that, scrcpy let me grab all my files and transfer everything to my new phone. If you have an android device take a few minutes to get scrcpy set up. It just might let you recover from a dead screen some day.

tjoff 3y ago
Yes, it is quite good for rescuing data etc. because in a lot of cases it is the screen that fails. In your case where the backlight dies it often helps to shine a flashlight on the screen and it will usually become more intelligible. One thing to keep in mind is that android will revoke saved debug-computers after 7 days or something meaning you have to press a popup to accept the connection. You can turn that off in the developer options and then you won't need any interactions on the device to start scrcpy (as longs as it is a computer you've used before with adb).
extraduder_ire 3y ago
I know my device can do HDMI out and USB at the same time over the type-c port, so that's my main plan if I end up with a destroyed screen. I also have kdeconnect installed on everything, but android will remove its permissions if I don't use it often enough.
- JeremyNT 3y ago
  > I also have kdeconnect installed on everything, but android will remove its permissions if I don't use it often enough. Kde connect is also great! You can prevent Android from revoking permissions under the app info menu. It's labeled as "pause app activity if unused."