After a long wait, Android 14 has arrived. We’ve been experimenting with Android 14 on the Google Pixel 7a for the past few months. Surprisingly, the latest major iteration of Google’s mobile operating system is light on aesthetics and dramatic feature additions. Instead, it focuses more on refinements, especially for large-screen devices.
But there are still a few new tools worth getting excited about, one of which is the ability to use your Android phone as a webcam for your computer. With the exception of Microsoft’s Surface tablets, it’s rare to use a laptop with a webcam that doesn’t turn your face into a grainy mess during meetings. And if your bandwidth isn’t the best, you might be better off disabling your video feed altogether. Hence, this latest feature of Android 14 is nothing but a trick of God.
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How to turn your Android phone into a webcam
What really shines with Android 14’s new feature is how well Google executed it. Or, more accurately, how damn easy it is. All you have to do is find the cable, change the behavior of the USB connection in the notification shade and you are ready to go in a few clicks. There are no complex tricks here and the entire user interface is also quite simple. The only prerequisite is that your smartphone runs Android 14.
Step 1: Connect your Android 14 phone to your computer with a USB cable.
Step 2: As soon as you connect your phone, a notification for USB contact appears at the top. By default, it is set to charging mode.
Step 3: Select the notification to expand and open it USB settings page. Under the title under the title Use USB foryou will come across a new option called Webcam.
Nadeem Sarwar / DigitalTrends
Step 4: As soon as you choose Webcamnew warning titled The device as a web camera appears in the notification shade.
Step 5: Tapping on the notification brings up a full-screen viewfinder where you can see what your phone’s camera is recording from both sides. The same view will be redirected to the computer, where you are connected to the video call.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Step 6: If you have a suitable stand or docking device, you can mount your phone and use the more powerful rear cameras for improved visual clarity.
Step 7: The next step is to switch from the default webcam view to the camera feed generated by your phone’s camera. To do this, open the camera settings in the video calling application running on your computer. For example, in Google Meet, follow this path: Settings > Video > Camera > Android Webcam.
Nadeem Sarwar / DigitalTrends
It just works
The whole process is quite simple and works like a charm. All you need to do is follow the notifications. But there are a few more benefits of using your Android phone as a native webcam. First, you have access to the ever-important trick called autofocus. Second, depending on your network bandwidth, you can increase or decrease the video resolution, but still get sharper images.
There’s also this neat little trick you can use to zoom in on your face almost imperceptibly. Unfortunately, the Pixel phone we used doesn’t have a dedicated zoom camera, so we couldn’t test whether the 3x or 5x optical zoom would give the person on the other end of the call a clear view.
This plug-and-play approach, with its own set of trinkets, is nothing short of a revelation. Yes, there are apps that can do the same trick with a phone as a webcam, but it’s still a third-party solution. And that can still create functional friction. To be able to do this natively is just magnificent. This is the type of benefit that every stakeholder should aim for. Yes, Apple did it first, but that’s a discussion for another day.
What matters is that Google now offers convenience. It would be nice if there was an option to set the phone’s own microphone as a sound recording method, but we doubt that’s already on the developer list. If you have an Android 14 phone and want to take your webcam game up a notch, here’s how to do it.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn