In these last days confinement has become a reality that is beyond Spain, it begins to look to the global level. This has forced many jobs will begin to be performed at remote, making video calls to skyrocket. Have a webcam of decent is critical in these days.
While the smartphone and its front camera is sufficient for video calls and casual between friends and family, but for video conferencing more professional it is usual to do them from your own PC for work.
If this whole affair you have been caught by off guard, surely you’re making video calls from the laptop work or any webcam old you have at home. You find yourself in a situation in which you don’t have a webcamand also you are going to buy one for two months that you’re going to spend working. But you don’t want to make video calls from the era of MSN Messenger.
What you didn’t know is that you already had a webcam of quality professional at home, and without paying any money or having to make extra expenses. Your own mobile phone.
DroidCam, the app that turns your phone into a webcam
DroidCam is not exactly a new application, and it is the first time we spoke it was in 2011, almost 9 years. An application to take as much time in active is an achievement that makes it an application worthy of our trust.
And what does he do? As its name suggests, it turns our phone into a webcam for the computer, giving an extra use to the large capacity photo of the modern smartphones. It is an application that works through WiFi or by connecting the mobile to the computer via the USB port, which gives us maximum versatility. You can also use the microphone of the mobile phone as microphone for computer if you want, something that can save us from trouble if we don’t have a microphone in the application.
Steps to use DroidCam on your computer
You need to download the desktop application on the official website of DroidCam. Today there are clients for Windows and Linux, so you choose the operating system of your preference. In our case, we tested it on Windows, to be a most popular system, but in Linux it also works wonders.
Official page of DroidCam.
Download and install the Driver. Thereafter, we recommend to restart the PC.
We open the application. We asked for a number, which is the IP address of our mobile, address that appears in the own mobile app.
Here we make a subsection, and it is that for it to work on WiFi properly, it is necessary that both devices are on the same network, and in addition to the coverage of both must be optimal, since otherwise, you’ll have latency problems in the camera. If we want to guarantee stability, the ideal is to connect it by cable, for which you will need to activate the USB debugging mode.
Click on Start and it will be the app in operation.
We can go to other applications and verify that it works correctly. In my case, I tried it with Discord.
You will need a support: the easiest way to get one at home
A constraint of great importance is where to place the mobile, since it is necessary that you stay static while we are in a video call. It is not something you think about until you’re on site and you have already prepared the application and the client computer.
The ideal would be a tripod for your smartphoneand although on a personal level, I very much like the Xiaomi (they gave it to my mother and she is thrilled) the idea here is to get the best webcam paying as little as possible, so that anything going out to the street to buy things!
There are a thousand utensils at home to keep your phone in a static place and that the camera is able to sign on. You can make recycling cardboard or plastic bottles, a glass big enough next to a stack of books… it just requires some imagination and find the one you like most.
My choice has been a small box of fabric from Ikea where I keep the cologne and deodorant. Little stylish, but completely functional.
DroidCamX, even more quality
Recording with the phone in vertical is only possible with the paid version.
Even though DroidCam is an app completely free and functional (with ads) has a number of limits. To do this, the creators of DroidCam also have in the Google Play DroidCamX, an upgraded version that unlocks a lot of extra features, in addition to higher image quality. The extra features are the following:
- No ads.
- Support for high-definition in 720p.
- Experimental feature FPS Boostthat increases the number of images per second (an image more smoothly).
- Extra features in the desktop client:
- Mode of mirror image.
- Rotate the image (it is essential if you want to hold the video in vertical).
- Adjustments of contrast, brightness and more…
- To activate the led flash of the camera.
- Screenshot.
For this comparison we were able to test both versions, since the guys DroidCam we have given kindly DroidCamX for the test, and by 4,29 euros it costs it seems to us an application great, saving us from having to buy a webcam, much more camera.
The free app is great, the paid version is outstanding.
Now what you should pay for the application? Already depends on the use you want to give, and that is if only you are going to use the phone as a webcam during the confinement, the free version works great. If you already want to use the camera frequently, 4,29 euros are an investment absurdly cheap for what you get.
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