this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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[Solved] Is it possible to use the camera from my android phone instead of my laptop camera? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by onlinepersona@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev
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And that without calling in twice. Laptop cameras as normally very crap. They say "1080p", but most of the time they are 720p or less and have maybe 2 megapixels or less. Phones have way more and can be connected to the laptop via USB. There must be a way to use their camera over USB, right?

I know of USB over LAN, so surely this is possible.

Thanks to everybody. In the end I went with Scrcpy.

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[–] riskable@programming.dev 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

For a wifi option, you can use Droidcam with OBS. Setup the virtual camera inside OBS and you've got a wifi webcam that you can walk around with.

I've used that setup many times and it's sweet. At work my coworkers are all astonished and amazed when I use the OBS virtual camera pass-through to my virtual desktop to walk around while talking (I use a wireless headset for the audio). I can even show various overlays of my desktop with my face and a downcam I have setup for demonstrations (like a craft cam setup).

Combine it with RVC voice changing silliness and they're all blown away. The security folks (of which I'm a part, haha) always freak out a little bit when they see me share my Linux desktop when I'm on Teams via the company's virtual desktop. "That shouldn't be possible!" Haha

I don't have the heart to show them how you can copy and paste huge amounts of text into the virtual desktop directly (clipboard sharing is disabled and prohibited 🤣).

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

DroidCam is closed source, isn't it?

P.S OBS is amazing.

[–] riskable@programming.dev 1 points 1 month ago

Yeah but it works and it's still free 🤷