
Strange Google Hangout Phenomenon - amakaruk
Why does my laptop&#x27;s camera light briefly turn on after making a phone call using Google voice? It&#x27;s a simple phone call that doesn&#x27;t use my camera, so why does the light flicker on briefly afterward?<p>Does anyone else experience this?
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ChiperSoft
My guess is that when the plugin initializes, it connects to the camera to
confirm that the previous settings are still valid and then disconnects once
it sees that video isn't needed.

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nextweek2
This is your camera lighting up when it polls for its resolution, many cameras
lie about their resolution so the most reliable way to know is to grab one
frame. Mine does the same with that and other software.

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dctoedt
This confirms the good sense of covering the camera lens when not in use. For
example, I've long stuck a narrow strip of paper, torn from the adhesive part
of a Post-It note, to my MBA's camera lens, removing it when making a video
call.

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maxk42
I use a band-aid. Prevents adhesive from getting on the lens.

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greenwalls
EFF has a laptop camera sticker cover set.
[https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-
set](https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set)

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lutusp
> Why does my laptop's camera light briefly turn on after making a phone call
> using Google voice?

It turns out that the current Hangouts defaults to the video call mode, even
if the user intends to use voice only. So the camera gets activated even
though it's not going to be used.

One workaround is to disable Hangouts and revert to the old setup, the one
where you placed voice-only calls from within Google Mail. I do it this way
simply because I don't have any contacts who do video calling.

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enjo
Can't replicate calling from either the Chrome extension or from within gmail.

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amakaruk
That's interesting. I'll make a video and upload it.

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mylons
takes a picture of you to store along with the metadata it sends to the NSA?

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jagawhowho
Shame you are being down voted after the prism program has been made public.
This is not as unlikely as it may sound.

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mylons
agreed -- i wrote it to sound tin foil hatty, but to come off as funny.
mission not accomplished

