
Turn your phone into a wireless webcam - dsr12
https://www.kinoni.com/
======
lukevp
I used this a while back to record, and the free version has some major
limitations (low res, wrong aspect ratio, can only use selfie cam). It did
work well, but they don’t mention any of these limitations on this pitch page.
The resolution lowering actually made the video quality significantly worse
(some kind of sharpening or something?) made the lighting look really
unnatural. Was trying to use iPhone with obs on Mac to record.

~~~
guu
It is strange that they don't link to the pro versions on their page.

Feature Comparison: [https://www.kinoni.com/support-and-
instructions/#Provsfreeve...](https://www.kinoni.com/support-and-
instructions/#Provsfreeversion)

iOS: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/epoccam-webcamera-for-
computer...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/epoccam-webcamera-for-
computer/id435355256)

Android:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kinoni.web...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kinoni.webcampro)

------
jodrellblank
That feels like a total advert; so in that vein I had better results with
Mobiola than EpocCam, and Mobiola have software which allows use of a phone as
a wireless headset and microphone, which is also neat. (Haven't used it in a
long time, might not be current).

I am quite surprised that plugging different bits of software and hardware
together is still such an "odd" thing to do. It makes so much sense to have a
smartphone, use the camera for two minutes, and then say "wish I could look
through this from my desktop" or "wish I could play sound out of my phone
headphones" or "wish I could use the touch screen as a mousepad on my desktop"
or "wish I could use my laptop/table as a second screen" or etc.

So much hardware, sensors, input and output devices all isolated into their
own islands, it's a shame. Over the years I've picked up bits of 3rd-party
software to do things like proxy a serial connection or audio connection over
ethernet, or use a keyboard and mouse on multiple computers, or use another
computer as a second screen, and have occasionally wondered about a
connection-graph website for "I have X and Y, what cables, dongles, adapters
and software can connect them together?".

------
Synaesthesia
In Mac OS you can record video from your iPhone in Quicktime (screen record),
but you can't stream the video from the camera. It would be really great if
Apple allowed that.

edit: I just found a free app by the same developer which allows just that!
Yay

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/telecast-camera-usb-
webcam/id1...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/telecast-camera-usb-
webcam/id1514987051)

~~~
junar
I feel that the ideal situation is your streaming platform offering a first-
party app on iOS. I believe YouTube and Facebook already have this, but Twitch
doesn't.

------
oger
Yesterday I came across [https://obs.camera/](https://obs.camera/) which is
not affiliated with OBS but claims to work with OBS using NewTec‘s NDI
streaming protocol. Haven‘t tried but put it high on my list as this seems to
be a super-easy and affordable way to build a set with multiple camera angles
if you need to. If it works well and lag / latency is OKish this is a cheap
alternative to external cameras with HDMI capture cards. Does anyone have
experience with OBS.camera?

~~~
Tepix
Yes it works and the NDI apps were (are?) free in April

~~~
diroussel
Yeah the NDI stuff works for me. I get a virual webcam that I can use in Zoom,
that connects to the NDI app on my phone. And it also works in OBS too.

Nice high quality and a reasonable amount of control in the app.

------
discordance
We use Teams at work and there’s a feature called companion mode [0] that
allows you to join a meeting from multiple devices, so you can use your pc
microphone for audio and your phone for video.

0: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/garage/wall-of-
fame/companio...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/garage/wall-of-
fame/companionexperiences/)

------
muska3
Has anyone compared this to DroidCam? Is it faster/lower lag?

~~~
leafandcoffee
Android users - IP Webcam / DroidCam, over USB with adb port forwarding is a
great option.

~~~
walrus01
I've found that IP Webcam functions fairly well as a standards-based
H.264/RTSP video stream to feed to anything that can take a rtsp feed. Such as
for a hacked up DIY home security camera system.

~~~
lioeters
Interesting info, thank you.

Searching around for RTSP, I found that it's possible to stream to WebRTC.

Kurento media server - [https://github.com/Kurento/kurento-media-
server](https://github.com/Kurento/kurento-media-server)

RTSP/HTTP URI to WebRTC example - [https://github.com/lulop-k/kurento-
rtsp2webrtc](https://github.com/lulop-k/kurento-rtsp2webrtc)

------
eigenspace
Does anyone know of comparable software that works well on linux?

~~~
tetris11
I used to have a nice bash script I could call from my Nokia N900 that would
pipe gstreamer over ssh, execute a script on the remote desktop PC to create a
new video device and use the phone cam as a webcam.

Dangerous, root-level stuff but it worked a dream.

~~~
skykooler
Can still do basically the same with SailfishOS, though for some reason you
need to open an audio context before starting gstreamer first.

------
unnouinceput
Bad idea to have your smartphone as your long hour meetings webcam. Mainly it
will drain the battery fast and will make it hot, meaning in long term will
shorten its life. This is only recommended in emergency situations, not as
your default daily setup.

~~~
ketamine__
You can plug it in?

~~~
kevmo314
My phone drained faster than it could charge with a laptop USB C charger and
modern phone supporting fast charge. I eventually relented and just got a
webcam, but it was a nice idea to have one fewer gadget.

~~~
morsch
Seems more likely that fast charging did not work than that the phone uses
>15W sustained to power the webcam?

------
kyranjamie
Installed app on iOS. Drivers MacOS. Tried WiFi and cable.

None of them worked.

~~~
obelos
I had the same issue. Rebooting my Mac fixed it, strangely.

------
indolering
I've tried _all_ of the commercial phone -> webcam solutions I found that the
camera isn't as good as the native software, because the vendor uses some
software magic to improve the image quality. The image tends to be very
grainy, especially with poor lighting.

Is there a technical reason that none of this software can present a UVC
camera to the computer directly?

~~~
diroussel
Did you try NDI?

Where do you see low quality, on the local monitor, or remotely? It's true
that the processing and compression means the remote site gets a low quality
picture regardless of a good input. But a good input is a good starting point,
and if you have good bandwidth, and low latecy (no wifi) then you can get a
good quality video stream.

------
slenk
One thing - if you are streaming video from your phone constantly like that it
will get toasty

~~~
chrisseaton
I think that's well-within the iPhone's design specs - people stream for hours
with their phones with no special cooling attached.

~~~
slenk
I just know from experience using "IP Webcam" from the Android market causes
my Pixel 2 XL to overheat in a case real fast.

That might be because it is serving all the content as well, though.

 _edit_ \- reading this page more though and it is clearly designed for iOS
with Android being an afterthought. Since Android doesn't support USB and has
to stream by WiFi, well I am pretty sure the Android phones will get hot as
they are then running some sort of video processing/compression locally

~~~
kalleboo
The latest iPhones actually have faster Wifi (650 Mbps) than they have USB
(480 Mbps), so I bet the compression is the same.

Maybe the android version isn’t using hardware compression correctly?

------
Nursie
You can run something like Spydroid or "IPCam demo" from the fdroid store, to
turn a phone into an IP webcam. I used an old Moto Z with LineageOS as a
webcam for a while there, against a linux host.

Took a bunch of messing around, but it worked well.

------
ScottGuthart
This seems to work okay. Took me a couple weeks to get an invite.

[https://reincubate.com/camo/](https://reincubate.com/camo/)

------
pacamara619
If this is gratis software why is it not opensourced?

------
bmurphy1976
How is the latency for this stuff? Every time I look into something like this
the latency is so high it's borderline unusable.

~~~
diroussel
Using NDI and connecting to an iPhone over USB, I found the latecy to be
pretty low, but still there.

Interestingly on a zoom call a few weeks ago I ended up on a call twice, once
from my iPhone, and once from the mac. I had a headphone from each in one ear.
Sometimes the iPhone would be ahead by 0.5 or 1 second. But then within a
minute the Mac would be ahead. So zoom is streaching out the audio to adapt to
network latecy, I guess.

------
Tepix
It‘s sad that a GoPro Hero5 Session camera can not stream video via USB.

~~~
codfrantic
I have a gopro clone 'eken H9R' which does exactly this, bought it for €20
euro's from a local sort of craigslist.

If you plug it into your PC without an SD card inserted it will act as a
webcam perfectly.

------
coronadisaster
Did this 10 years ago but the phone could not keep up even when plugged in...
Probably would work ok with newer, more efficient phones

------
pazimzadeh
I would love something like this which could turn my old iPhone into a home
surveillance camera.

~~~
hi_hello
I can recommend [https://alfred.camera](https://alfred.camera), it has a
particularly handy "push to talk" feature that I use to scare our cat.

------
cmpaul
Been using this since my MBP webcam died. Works well, doesn't seem to lag
much.

------
matt_f
Anyone here familiar with or have a link for a *nix friendly solution?

Thanks!

------
ahmadrosid
Is this support Linux?

~~~
indolering
Nope.

------
drcongo
Almost every single static asset for this site is blocked by my ad blockers.

~~~
slenk
I block 1.5 million ad domains and I had no problems

------
techntoke
Just run Firefox:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23762709](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23762709)

