

I’m not sure why you’d ever want to turn on the light. There’s a video preview (when it’s not obscured by a fullscreen ad, that is) and buttons to flip horizontally, switch between front/rear camera, and turn on the flashlight. It worked once or twice, but without rhyme or reason.Īpart from that, the app is adequate. Worse yet, I was never able to reliably connect via USB, even in airplane mode.

I would hate to have to do that during a meeting. Sometimes I had to quit both apps, start the desktop app, then start the mobile app. It usually took a while to connect, and it wasn’t always able to recover after one side restarted. It exists only to prove that the tech works. Iriun Webcamīecause of its ads and limitations, EpocCam’s free version clearly isn’t meant to be used for any practical purpose. I also brought an iPhone SE out of retirement for one last mission.

– Free with no ads but also limited to 640×480 the version costs $5.50īoth apps require you to install a special app on your Mac, and they’re pretty spartan affairs: a single window with a video thumbnail and a named virtual webcam device appearing in other apps.– Free but ad-laden and limited to an impractical 640×480 the $8 adds features and removes the limits and advertisements.– Free with a video watermark (removable for a $4.50 in-app purchase).Searching around for _use-phone-as-a-desktop-webcam_ apps that work with macOS, I found two options: If you’re not willing to wait for weeks or pay through the nose, what are you to do? There’s an app for that. Naturally, a surge in demand for webcams has driven inventory down and, particularly for models. If you want your image to look decent or want the video perspective to come from above your desktop monitor (instead of that off-to-the-side laptop angle many of us are sporting), a proper USB webcam is in order. Unfortunately, laptop webcams are generally terrible. So we’re all working remotely right now and participating in a lot of video chats.
