Microsoft's Link to Windows app could soon gain functionality that lets you use your Android phone as a webcam. Read on to learn more!
  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    22·
    11 months ago

    If you’re in Linux and you want the same thing right now, scrcpy already offers to expose your cellphone’s camera as a video4linux device. See here:

    https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/v4l2.md

    I use it every once in a while when I do a presentation in Teams at work and I need one webcam to show my mush, and another to demonstrate whatever device I’m presenting: I use the cellphone to capture close-ups of the device and focus on features people ask me to show, scrcpy sends the camera capture to a v4l2 device, and Teams uses the v4l2 device as a regular video source.

    Super useful!

    • fatboy93@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      Not really an open-source approach, but I found that irium Webcam is generally a lot better if you’re just wanting to use your phone as one.

      For some reason scrcpy just doesn’t work well for me.

    • SatyrSack@lemmy.oneEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      Does GrapheneOS not support this? I am not seeing a Webcam option under Use USB for

      EDIT: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/8672-phone-as-webcam/3

      Seemingly it is still a pending feature, that will be included with the December quarterly feature release (“QPR1”). The only people who are using it now on their phones are running QPR1 betas, which I think first began releasing in September.

      • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Yea I guess so, I’d be curious about the latency from that

        • atocci@kbin.social
          2·
          11 months ago

          My Asus laptop came with their own version of this preinstalled. I had to install the corresponding app on my phone, but when I tried it out, I had no noticeable amount of latency for anything you would use a webcam for. It was over a relatively fast WiFi 6 connection though.

    • Dandroid@dandroid.appEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      KDE connect has been really buggy for me since my most recent Linux install. I can’t even send texts unless I use the command line. And it has to redownload all my texts every time I reopen the app.

      At least I get notifications 100% of the time, which is the most important use case for me.

    • Bluefruit@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      I was curious if someone was gonna mention KDE connect. From what i saw it looked pretty good though i havent used it myself.

    • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      9·
      11 months ago

      You don’t have to:

      Create a work profile managed by Shelter. then install the sketchy Microsoft app - along with all the other sketchy apps you don’t trust - in the work profile where they won’t have access to any of your important data or contacts, won’t have any permission you don’t want to give them, and where you can freeze them and neuter them completely when they’re not in use.

      Here’s a good howto for Shelter and work profiles. Work profiles are great: they’re just as good as separate accounts to keep unstrustworthy apps from accessing data you don’t want them to get at and putting you under surveillance, but they’re a lot more flexible than separate accounts.

      Work profiles are a standard Android feature that everybody who cares about privacy should use.