With an app, you can turn your phone into a webcam, which you can use with Zoom, or any app for that matter; or even use your phone to stream live using a program such as OBS. A quick search on Google will show you there are tons of apps out there that let you turn your phone into a webcam for your computer. As you can see, it is entirely possible (and fairly simple) to get an Android phone configured to act as a webcam for your computer. Just like with Android, there are a few iOS apps out there claiming that they will be able to turn your mobile device into a webcam.
You need to install a mobile app on your Android, which tricks the computer into thinking that it is a webcam or a camera. There are a few apps on the Google Play store that claim to turn your Android device into a webcam. The Google Play store turns your Android. There are dozens of apps, both free and paid, that will help turn your handy smartphone into a webcam.
Apps To Install To Use Phone As Webcam
A dedicated webcam app (more on this below) has dedicated features, but you do not need one to use the phones camera for video chat. If you have a PC and a phone on the same network, you can use the Android app to link the two devices, and use the phones camera as your webcam.
Once connected, your PC will keep showing your androids camera feed, and you can choose to have your camera selected within the video apps. Once the EpocCam iPhone webcam viewer is launched on the laptop, you should be seeing videos from the phones camera on the computer. Next, you will want to download the EpocCam iPhone Webcam Viewer from the Mac app store, and keep both your phone and your computer on the same Wi-Fi network.
Both your computer and your smartphone must be on the same Wi-Fi network; then, the EpocCam Webcam App streams a feed from your iPhone to an NDA application on your PC. You can hook up an Android phone to a computer, using a wired or wireless connection, which then allows the computer to access its built-in camera. With all of that setup, now you are ready to plug your Android phone in, and use your Android like a USB webcam that is connected by wire. You can plug your phone into a computer using a compatible USB cable, then access your camera feed.
While most apps take advantage of a wireless connection, which requires that both your Android and computer are on the same Wi-Fi network, some will allow you to connect via USB cable as well. Once you launch a Windows app, you will see options near the top of the apps window, which allow you to connect your device either wirelessly or by USB.
DroidCam
Once installed, open up the Droidcam OBS app and plug in both devices using the USB cable. On my phone, you can find your WiFi IP address on the Droidcam OBS app you installed. Now, on your PC client, choose Connect Over WiFi, and type the device IP address and the DroidCam port values you saw in DroidCam.
The same DroidCam app can make the connection via USB cable as well, so that is what we are going to use for this. IP webcam now opens your phone camera and you can use the phone as webcam in the PC. Android users can try out a free app called DroidCam (opens in new window) to convert it to a webcam. If you are at a PC running Windows, and have an Android phone or an iPhone, one of the easiest (and wireless) methods is to use an app called DroidCam.
Similar to the wireless connections, you can choose DroidCam as your webcam within apps that request it. The Android app registers your Android phone as the webcam for your PC, so any apps checking for the presence of a webcam on your PC will instead use your phones camera. Then, the app on your PC will let videoconferencing services you choose — Skype, Zoom, and others — know your phone is the webcam. These apps allow your computer to recognise your phone as a webcam, as long as it is connected by USB cable or on the same wireless network.
USB Support
Plug the phone into the computer using either the USB cable or a Lightning cord, making sure that one of the more popular ones is open when you do. If you are using a browser-based videoconferencing app instead of an individual computer application, be sure you grant your browser permission to access the webcam. Remember, you should close any other camera apps before opening the IP Webcam.
Now you have your Webcam, which is accessible by any application that supports it, like Zoom, Skype, OBS, or Windows 10s built-in Camera app. You can use the OBS Droidcam app to focus, zoom, add basic filters, and adjust your video. Webcam apps and video chat apps often let you choose options such as the resolution, quality, and direction of your video, and focus, white balance, and color effects.
Most video conferencing apps, including Zoom, Skype, Hangouts, and others, have mobile apps you can use to talk directly from your phone. There are Android apps for all of the popular video calling apps, meaning that you can simply download Zoom or Skype onto your phone, hop into the meeting that way, and not have to deal with all of this webcam nonsense. You could use the video conference app on your phone if you only needed to sit down at the meeting and occasionally join, but you would want to get a better system if you were in attendance and needed to share the screen. Unfortunately, there is no way to get a steady connection between a computer and an Android phone without using a third-party app.
