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Comment by fab1an | Hacker News Reader

It's incredibly annoying that you can't use your APPLE iPhone camera as a webcam for your APPLE Macbook, but instead are forced to use the atrociously terrible cam that comes with the Macbook.

I've tried workarounds using the excellent OSB, but there's currently no software that let's you reroute video on a Mac (like Loopback does for audio)

EDIT: I stand corrected, as user wolfhumble points out below, EpocCam seems to do this - thanks! https://apps.apple.com/us/app/epoccam-webcamera-for-computer...

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There is this, but I haven't tried it: https://apps.apple.com/app/epoccam-webcam-for-mac-pc/id44913...

Looking at the reviews, I see multiple people saying that the developer required paid users to write a review in order to unlock the ability to use the front camera. I think it goes without saying that is an incredibly scummy practice.

Oh, an app doing that to me would certainly get a review.

They have two app versions, a free with fewer features and a paid with full features. I personally tried first the free to make sure it works, and then I paid for the full version.

rating an app to unlock features is scummy? compared to all the other practices and anti-patterns apps use today?

Yes, it's still scummy. Bad practice doesn't make another bad practice good...

Yes, it's incredibly dishonest and encourages reviews which are likely to lead other people to make the same mistake. Any application which does so is against apples guidelines and ought to be banned

No need to write -- just click on a star rating. I clicked 3 stars for that reason. But it functionally is phenomenal. Will honestly probably change it and write an actual review...

I have tried it and it works flawlessly when paired with an iphone 11. You can even use the main iphone camera, not just the front facing one. It is by far my best webcam (compared to my laptops and a stand-alone logitech I own).

PS. To make it work you need to install a driver on your PC, so it can be a no-go for many company owned computers.

I tried it and it did not work for me. (Macbook Pro and iPhone 8)

any equivalent for android?

I've been using DroidCam for my Windows desktop for the last few days. Works super well, although my phone seems to get hot after about an hour of using it.

I've found these apps:

- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dreamdroid...

- http://www.dev47apps.com/

- http://ip-webcam.appspot.com/

Any opinion on which one is best?

I've had huge success with IP Webcam, especially since it appears to be a standard MJPEG stream, so very hackable (in the good sense). The web interface also crucially adds UI for focusing, in addition to the customizable in-phone UI.

I've not been able to get it to work smoothly without specifying at least a 1000ms buffer, which kinda ruins the ability to use as a real time communication tool. Gigabit local lan, strong wifi N MIMO signal, Galaxy S10 and a fairly recent Macbook pro (dual booting to Win 10).

Have you encountered a similar hurdle?

It seems to have massive delays if I capture on full resolution (3060x2295 on my phone), but that is a ridiculous number that can't even be transmitted over my internet, so I run it at 1280x720, which has basically ideal latency.

I was just playing around with IP Webcam. So far it has been a breeze to set up. I do wish it had some additional options on limiting what you broadcast over, ie limit to just https.

Fair enough, but I frankly wouldn't trust it exposed on the internet.

If you really need, run a reverse proxy only on the /video endpoint. For I don't know how hardened the focus and automation control APIs are.

DroidCam, but the video quality is kind of terrible, even with the paid version

In the Maemo/Meego days, it was possible to just use gstreamer from your phone to get a video stream (and v4l2loopback to make that into a video device... Pity Nokia fucked that up completely.

I have many bad things to say about MS Teams, but it does allow you to join a meeting multiple times on multiple devices using the same user account - so you can watch a screenshare on your desktop. machine but use the microphone or camera on your phone.

Google Meet lets you do that too, in fact I was doing it earlier today, but until now I hadn't thought that was in any way remarkable... is it really?

Like you, I could speak for days about the problems with MS Teams, but this is definitely one of the things they get right. Handy for presenting your whole screen and being able to monitor chat conversations in that meeting on your iPad.

Funny that mentioned an iPad! I had the exact opposite use case: I used my iPad to draw a diagram, but used my desktop webcam instead of the one in the iPad sitting in my lap (which would have a terrible angle of pretty much only my chin).

I've noticed that it does this in meetings, but not in a direct chat with another person (I don't think group chats either). What I usually do in that case is create a meeting so that I can do that.

Yep, I should have clarified that. There is a weird disconnect between 1-to-1 calls and meetings with 2 people in them.

So far I haven't been able to see any advantage at all to 1-to-1 calls except it takes fewer clicks to start them.

EpocCam is awesome, tested and working on iOS 13 and Mojave. 7.99 for the pro version and my video quality is 10x better than iSight. + I can position the camera anywhere I like so people are stuck looking up at me from a laptop, and I can go back to using clamshell mode on my macbook when at a desk.

I've tried three different video streaming apps for iOS, and they all had issues with drifting. Not sure if it's been fixed.

Zoom/slack/skype do have iOS clients. I've just been using a plugged in iPhone instead of a webcam.

What’s so atrociously terrible about your macbook camera?

you can install AirServer that will basically make appletv from your Mac, and then stream from phone over airplay.

If you are ok with a MacBook screen nearly as thick and heavy as an iPhone, you can have a better camera. The increasing thinness of modern laptops has come at the expense of improving their cameras.

I'd be good money to get a thicker Macbook Pro with a workable keyboard, that's for sure!

You are in luck, 16 inch MBP has a good keyboard. Butterfly switches are gone.

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