If you already have a webcam and want another camera for a different angle, or you are not satisfied with the quality of your current camera, you can use your phone as a replacement. Having a phone as your camera for your PC give you flexibility and more control over the position and effects you want on your camera. You can place your phone almost anywhere in your room which you can’t do with a webcam especially a laptop webcam.
Here we will show how to use your phone as your webcam, whether you will use it for your streaming or online meetings. Just remember to connect your phone to a powerbank for long sessions.
DroidCam / DroidCam X
DroidCam is the most popular application that lets you use your android phone as camera for your PC. It comes in FREE and Pro versions and you can use your WiFi or USB cable to connect your phone to your PC. We will use WiFi for this guide as it is more easier and gives you freedom to where you want to place your camera for different angles.
1. On your Android phone, install DroidCam or DroidCam X Pro from Google Play Store. On first use, allow DroidCam to take pictures, and record audio and video.
2. Take note of the Wifi IP and DroidCam Port.
3. On your PC, download and install the PC client for DroidCam from https://www.dev47apps.com .
4. Run DroidCam then click the DroidCam menu and click Start if you don’t see the Connect window.
5. On Connect window, key-in the WiFi IP and DroidCam Port from your phone, click the Video and click the Start button. You can also click the Audio option if you want use your phone as your microphone.
6. You can now select DroidCam as your camera on your application.
7. DroidCam X Pro will give you more controls over your phone like rotate, auto-focus, zoom, and HD resolutions which the free version doesn’t have. To Enable HD resolutions, click HD Mode on DroidCam menu, select the HD resolution then restart your PC.
SplitCam and IP Webcam
1. On your Android phone, search and install IP Webcam from Google Play Store.
2. Open the application and look for Start Server.
3. On first use, allow IP Webcam to take pictures, record audio and video, and access media files.
4. IP Webcam will now use phone’s camera. Click the More… button.
5. Select RTSP/h264/ONVIF urls.
6. Take note of the url. In our example it is “rtsp://192.168.1.3:8080/h264_ulaw.sdp” or “…/h264_pcm.sdp”.
7. On your PC, download and install SplitCam from https://splitcamera.com.
8. After installation, run SplitCam. On Media Layers panel, click the + button to add new source and select IP Camera.
9. Key-in the rstp url provided by IP Webcam on your Android phone and click the Add button.
10. Your phone camera is now added to SplitCam.
11. You can now use it to your camera application. Its name in the selection is SplitCam Video Driver.
DroidCam OBS
DroidCam OBS is a new plugin for OBS that lets you use your android phone (and iPhone soon) as your camera source.
1. On your Android phone, open Google Play Store and search and install DroidCam OBS. After installation, open DroidCam OBS and allow the application to take pictures and record video and audio.
2. Take note of the Wifi IP and DroidCam Port.
3. On your PC, go to http://dev47apps.com/obs/ and download and install the OBS plugin.
4. In OBS, add a source and select DroidCam OBS.
5. Key-in the WiFi IP and DroidCam Port from phone, and click Activate.
6. Image from your phone camera will now show. Click OK.
