With social distancing, many people are doing video conferences. The demand for webcams has skyrocketed. If you can even find one, they can be pricey. If you own a laptop, it probably already has a webcam, but the cameras in even high-end laptops tend to be low resolution and generally not very good.
But, if you own a mobile phone, you probably already own a camera that’s at least as good as the typical webcam. If you’re just conferencing with one other person, that’s probably enough. But if your conference has several participants, you’ll want to use the bigger screen on your desktop. So, the problem is how do you do that?
For android phone users, there’s a simple, free solution: DroidCam. It’s comprised of two programs: an app that runs on your phone and a program that runs on your PC.
To use it, you first must install the app on your phone from Google Play and the program on your PC via the link on the DroidCam site. There’s a link on the DroidCam site to both the app and the program. For phones with higher resolution cameras, use the DroidCamX application.
Once they’re installed, start DroidCam on your phone. Be sure your phone is connected to your home’s LAN. (This will also work by connecting your phone to your computer with a USB cable, but I usually use the wireless connection.) If you’re using your LAN, when the app starts it will display an information screen that includes the IP address of your phone. It will look something like 192.168.1.12. The last numbers, 12 in the example, will vary depending on your LAN, but the first three sets are probably the same.
Once you’ve started the app on your phone, go to your computer and start the Droidcam program. It opens in a new window. Click on the word “DroidCam” in the upper left-hand corner (see the snapshot below) and choose “Start.” This brings up a menu. Add in the IP address displayed on the DroidCam app on your phone–192.168.1.12 in the above example. Be sure to check both the video and audio boxes. When you click “start,” your phone’s camera is connected to your computer as a webcam and you’ll see what your phone sees displayed on your PC’s monitor. Applications like Zoom for Facebook’s new Video messenger recognize DroidCam as a webcam.
It works much the same way if you connect your phone to your PC via USB cable, except you don’t need the IP address. The downside to the USB connection is that your PC probably won’t charge your phone or, if it does charge your phone, the camera will drain the phone’s battery faster than the computer’s USB port can charge it. The downside to the network connection is that sometimes it can be unstable, depending on your LAN and phone.
The other thing you need to make this work well is something to hold your phone in a steady position. You can get inexpensive “selfie sticks” on Amazon that include small tripods designed for exactly this purpose. For example, I bought this one.
Overall, this is a pretty nifty application and works well. I used it during a Higher Learning Commission accreditation visit, running it pretty much continuously 8-5 for three days with no hitches. With the selfie stick, you could even use this to make recordings and store them on your PC or your phone.
