DroidCam

Description

Turning a phone into a webcam sounds like it should be simple — a phone has a camera, a microphone, and a wireless connection. DroidCam makes it actually work by doing the network connection, the video format conversion, and the driver layer to make Windows and Linux treat the phone’s feed as a standard webcam device. The result: any application that accepts a webcam input, including Zoom, Teams, OBS and browser-based video call services, see the phone as a regular camera without special configuration.

Dev47Apps released DroidCam in 2010, originally for Android with Windows support. The software became much more relevant during the pandemic of 2020, when working and studying from home led to sudden demand for webcams at a time when the supply of webcams was depleted around the world. People who had a capable smartphone camera but no dedicated webcam found DroidCam provided a workable solution without having to buy hardware.

ORIGINS AND GROWTH

Dev47Apps created DroidCam as a side utility, and it was a rather niche tool for users who were comfortable enough with network setup to get it working. The pandemic altered that audience profile dramatically. Between 2020 and 2022, the application received millions of new users who required any webcam solution in a short period of time, and Dev47Apps responded with improvements in the interface to make the setup process less complicated. The application landed on best of lists for remote work tools and technology journalism covered it as a legitimate webcam alternative instead of a technical workaround.

iOS support through a separate application called DroidCam Webcam came later, extending the solution to iPhone and iPad users wanting to have the same functionality. The DroidCam OBS plugin — a paid add-on — integrates directly with OBS Studio and the larger streaming software stack, providing lower latency and higher resolution than the standard driver method by bypassing the generic webcam driver architecture of Windows.

KEY FEATURES

Wireless and USB Connection

DroidCam is used to connect the phone to the PC via Wi-Fi or USB. Wi-Fi connection requires both devices to be on the same local network, the desktop client will show the IP address and port number to enter in the phone app. USB connection uses Android Debug Bridge (ADB) for Android and iTunes for iOS, which is more stable connection with lower latency than Wi-Fi. Both methods give the same virtual webcam device to other applications.

Video Quality

The free version of DroidCam is 480p resolution. The DroidCam X paid upgrade on android unlocks 720p and 1080p streaming and removes the standard watermark free output. The higher the resolution, the more CPU and network resources are required on both devices. Frame rate is at 30fps at standard resolutions, higher frame rates require hardware that can encode and transmit the data fast enough.

Microphone Input

DroidCam routes the phone’s microphone as a virtual audio input device on the PC, which appears as a selectable microphone source in Windows sound settings. This allows the phone to be used as a camera and microphone at the same time, which is useful for users whose computer does not have a built-in microphone or whose built-in microphone has poor audio.

DroidCam OBS Plugin

The paid OBS plugin is used to connect DroidCam directly to OBS Studio as a source, bypassing the standard virtual webcam driver layer. The plugin has lower latency than the driver method and supports higher resolutions. Streamers and video producers who use OBS as their main output tool find the plugin more reliable under the particular demands of live output than the generic driver approach.

Background and Filters

Later versions added rudimentary background blur and color adjustment filters that run on the phone instead of the PC so as to reduce the processing load on the computer. The filters use the phone’s own image processing capabilities.

Landscape and Portrait Orientation

The phone camera orientation changes in the desktop client — horizontal or vertical — and the desktop client rotates the feed accordingly. This allows users to hold the phone in whatever orientation fits their desk configuration without having to end up with a sideways image in video calls.