> And while there is certainly room for improvement with typical webcams: the problem is in many cases not the camera, but the conditions under which it operates. Low light, shooting against the light, smeared laptop lenses, weird angles (not eye level), weird perspective framing, bad combination of light and framerates, mixed light temperatures, low CRI lighting, etc. If you take an 40k€ Arri and a 20k€ Zeiss Prime and do all of the above the result will still look more or less crappy.
All this is true, yet the difference between a bad laptop webcam and a high-end phone front camera is huge.
The problem is laptop lids are a lot thinner than smartphones and just don't have the depth to contain a decent optic. Apple have tried to mitigate this a bit in the new M1 machines using some computational photography to improve the image.
The Surface machines from Microsoft actually stand out in this regard. Because the brains of the machine are in the same section as the screen and camera, they are a lot thicker and can put in pretty decent camera modules.
The market for dedicated external webcams is a little sparse because most people don't want to have more peripherals.
There's probably a good opportunity for home office external displays to incorporate smartphone cameras, studio mikes, and maybe even lighting elements to help people look good while working from home.
Since COVID the webcam market has exploded. Logitech had to significantly ramp up production due to increase in demand back in April. It’s not just remote work, but also aspiring content creators.
companies that are crushed by demand for existing products, and dealing with covid-related supply chain issues, and long-term uncertainty about demand aren't going to have a lot of luck getting a new high-end product out in <9 months.
among other reasons, getting these sorts of things made usually requires some travel by the engineers to the manufacturing/assembly facility to sort out problems.
it might need a mount to be properly positionned, but that would be the only IRL hurdle. On the software front I don’t know how good the current options are, but fixing bugs should be doable.
I tried going this route a few weeks ago. There's a few pretty big problems with current phone-based solutions:
- You need to fiddle with your phone (which is probably mounted to a monitor?) any time you want to turn on your webcam
- There's a perceptible lag on the final video, not ideal
- Phone needs an external power source, charging-over-USB usually isn't enough to power a phone with an always-on camera
- The phone will get hot, as it's not designed to run camera constantly
- For Android, your best option is to stream video over USB, which means enabling ADB and developer settings, which is inherently insecure. It also makes the charging problem above trickier, as phones usually only have the one port.
Honestly the best phone-based solution right now is to join the meeting twice - once on your personal phone for sending video, and once on your computer for sending/receiving audio/screenshares.
My laptop lid is as thick as my smartphone. I think there is enough space. I think the technology from smart phones has not swept over to laptop lids yet.
What if the Smartphone camera cost $20, and the laptop camera cost $5 to manufacturer? Smart phones can maybe justify the extra $15, laptop makers cannot. If a laptop maker can't raise the price $15, it literally eats their profits.
If they can't justify the price increase and it doesn't make then a cpear winner against the competition, the manufacturer will cut some corners to stay competitive. At scale, an expense increase of $15 per device is quite significant.
They are able to, but being able to shave a couple of cents on it gives them a massive return while most consumers don't complain, and their competitors aren't offering anything better.
I believe they make 3-5% margin for a $30-$50 profit on the hardware in that example. They literally cannot afford that extra $15 unless they raise the price $15 and then they have to worry about whether a value conscious buyer buys their slightly cheaper alternative.
Keeping in mind this is for a feature that most people actually don't care about.
Take that $15 and apply to 8 other things. The memory. The speaker. The keyboard. Your $500 laptop is now $600. Your competitor is still $500. You lose.
We're not talking about a budget $500 laptop. My laptop cost me over $1500 and its camera sucks. I did not shop based on price; I shopped based on specs and features.
People walk around taking pictures and video with their phone. No one walks around with their laptop open taking pictures or filming the kids on the tobogganing hill.
Now with everyone working remotely I could see a quality demand happening but no where near the interest in phone cams.
I've had success using my iPhone for video capture via OBS. The setup was a bit fiddly, but still only took an hour-ish to try this approach by downloading and installing OBS, figuring out I needed a virtualcam plugin, finding it and fiddling w config, creating a dirt-simple "scene", and enabling it for use in Zoom. This is on an iPhone X (iOS 14.2), and Catalina (macOS 10.15.7).
A lot of work has been done on phone cameras to replace standalone cameras, but isn't half of the development investment there on the software side -- in addition to the hardware of the camera? (e.g. echoing GP's "crappy webcam pictures are filtered in ways that make them look acceptable etc" statement)
All this is true, yet the difference between a bad laptop webcam and a high-end phone front camera is huge.