Thanks to the advancement of technology and operating systems, it is now possible to build different relations between your PC and smartphone, as in webcam, speakers, mouse and so on are some of the things that your smartphone can turn into for your PC. We have already covered speakers in our previous content, so today we will move on to the webcam.
DroidCam
Installation process is the easiest task in the world. All you need to do is to go into Play Store, search for droidcam and install what comes up. You can also access the app in Play Store through the link below:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dev47apps.droidcam
Once you are through with it, open the app, skip the tutorial parts as you will not need it and next, you will see IP addresses to access your device camera remotely. To access it on another device, you will have to use the same network as the one in your smartphone. Default port address is set to 4747, but you can change this in app settings.
You can even take pictures, toggle flashlight, enable autofocus, zoom in and zoom out from your PC.
Settings
In settings, along with port selection option, you can change a bunch of other options as well. You can limit FPS rate to reduce battery drain, turn on Noise Suppression, Bluetooth Link, change the input audio channel to either Microphone, Camera, Automatic or Other and so on. If you are worried that someone else in your network might have access to your phone camera, you can also set user identification in order to prevent such security issues.
DroidCam Webcam PC App
In Linux:
You can also use DroidCam’s PC software to connect to your device camera, and as much as this offers you a little more options, it also requires additional steps to have video and audio access if you are on Linux. Only 64 bits version is available as binaries so if your system is 32 bits, you will need to compile it from the github repository here
If you have a 64 bits installation however, you can continue with the following steps. Close the app on your device and copy-paste the code below in your terminal:
cd /tmp/ wget -O droidcam_latest.zip https://files.dev47apps.net/linux/droidcam_1.8.2.zip # sha1sum: d1038e6d62cac6f60b0dd8caa8d5849c79065a7b unzip droidcam_latest.zip -d droidcam cd droidcam && sudo ./install-client
Latest versions of Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora distros no longer includes libappindicator package, and it is required for the system tray icon:
On Ubuntu 21, use sudo apt install libappindicator3-1
On Fedora 33, use sudo dnf install libappindicator-gtk3
For Debian Bullseye, use the packages here and here:
For video, you have two options: you can use the standard v4l2loopback module or the DroidCam version v4l2loopback-dc. For v4l2loopback-dc: sudo apt install linux-headers-`uname -r` gcc make
As the next step, run sudo ./install-video
For audio, DroidCam app can use ALSA, however it is recommended that you use the app only for video. To enable audio:
sudo ./install-sound
And you can finally run the app, typing in droidcam in your terminal and then go ahead and choose your connection type and enter IP address to connect.
In Windows:
Download the Windows app from the link below and make sure there is no interference from other apps that use camera such as Skype, Zoom etc.
