The front cameras integrated into each and every one of the laptops sold on the market in 2020 are regrettable, offering practically the same quality as the cameras on smartphones from 2010. In the Wall Street Journal they analyzed the main webcams of the most laptops. moderns and came to the conclusion today's smartphone cameras are infinitely better.
If you have ever used the integrated front camera of your laptop, however modern it may be, you can corroborate what I am talking about. The only way to improve the video quality of our video calls is to buy a webcam (Logitech is one of the most recommended). However, there is another solution, a much cheaper solution that allows us use our mobile as a webcam.
If we do a simple search for applications that allow us to use our smartphone as a webcam in the Play Store, we can go crazy, since despite their name, most of them, does not allow us to use our smartphone as a webcam, but they allow us to access webcams that we have installed in our home.
But, there are them. The number of options that we have at our disposal to turn our smartphone into a webcam is quite small, at least if what we are looking for is quality and options. In this article we show you the three best applications available in the Play Store to be able to use the front or rear camera of our smartphone as a webcam.
Both applications and web services of Skype, Zoom, Teams, Messenger… Allow us to use our smartphone as a webcam. We just have to select as the video source the program that we have installed both on our PC and on our Android terminal to be able to send our image.
These applications are available in two versions: free with limitations / ads and one paid. The free version allows us to check if the operation it offers us suits our needs before buying the paid version, if we want to get the most out of it, avoid ads, watermarks in the video ...
DroidCam
DroidCam is one of the simplest applications that we have at our disposal to use both the front and rear cameras of our smartphone as a webcam, since practically the entire process is automatic.
The first thing to do is download both the application on our smartphone (only available on Android) as the application for our PC (Currently there is no version for macOS).
Once we have installed the application on our smartphone, we run it before the PC version. An IP address (192.128.100.x) and a port (4747) will be displayed on the screen of our smartphone. This will be the route that our smartphone uses to communicate with our PC and that it recognizes it as an external camera.
Next we must run the PC application and enter the Device IP and DroidCam Port data. This data is what is shown on the home screen of the 192.168.100.x application as IP and 4747 as port. Once we have entered these data, we mark the video and audio boxes if we want to use not only the camera of our smartphone as a webcam, but also the microphone. Finally, click on Start.
Next, the image of our smartphone will be displayed in the application window, an image that if we use the payment application allows us zoom the image, activate the flash to improve lighting, activate autofocus, go back and rotate the image ...
In order to use the DroidCam software, we must open the application or web service that we want to use to make the video call and select the source of the DroidCam camera and select the resolution that we want to use, if this option is included among the application options to So take advantage of the maximum resolution of the camera of our smartphone.
epoch
The Kinoni company offers us through Epocam, the possibility of being able to use our smartphone as a camera for a PC or Mac. Unlike DroidCam, this allows us to use the USB connection instead of via Wi-Fi to get the highest possible video quality. Unless we have a very old router and our smartphone is also a few years old, the change in quality between the Wi-Fi signal and via USB is hardly noticeable.
In order to use the Epocam software, we must download the drivers for our equipment, and be it PC or Mac. In this case, it is not an app like DroidCam, but only the necessary drivers will be installed so that our team recognizes that we have connected a webcam and that we can use it. Once we have installed the drivers on our computer, we install the version for our Android smartphone (it is also available for iOS)
In order for our team to recognize our smartphone as a webcam, we must start the application on our mobile device and open the application or web service where we want to use our smartphone as a webcam.
Within the configuration options of the application or web service, we must set as video source EpoCam Camera. If we are using the free version, the application will send the signal via Wi-Fi. If we use the paid version, the USB cable connection will be used.
Iriun, the most complete application
The solution that Iriun offers us is the most complete, a solution that is available for both Android and iOS, Windows, Mac and Linux. And when I say that it is the most complete solution, it is because allows us to use up to 4 smartphones simultaneously as sources of our equipment.
This application is designed for users who want to offer different shots while broadcasting. The price of this application is practically the same as costs the rest of applications, 5 euros. The only thing the in-app purchase does is remove the watermark from the displayed video.
Once we have installed the application on our smartphone and we have installed the application for our computer, our image will be displayed in a window. At that time, we can configure any application or web service with the webcam of our smartphone, selecting the source of the image as Iriun. If we are using more than one smartphone as a webcam, the application will allow us to choose which one we want to use at all times.
Iriun allows us connect via Wi-Fi or via USB cable and it allows us to use the maximum resolution of our smartphone camera to make our video calls.
