The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of serious economic strains on the way businesses around the world to operate since everyone has been sent online as a result of self-isolation or social distancing measures put in place by governmental bodies to ensure the safety of everyone.
But there is one downside to this, video conferencing has although become seriously popular in recent times, and services such as Zoom have gone really big, what holds a lot back is the horrible resolutions of their computer’s default webcams.
While you can purchase a third-party webcam device such as those from Bakeey at a very cheap price point, you can also use your smartphone as your PC webcam which basically gives you a better resolution and a better appealing video conferencing experience.
But since the boom of Zoom, many people have flocked to the service which has been used as a video conferencing platform and even live stream the meeting event to services such as YouTube or Facebook. So in case, this is what you aim to achieve because we all know of course modern smartphones have really great camera hardware and image processing better than most webcams and who really want to spend extra bucks unnecessarily after purchasing some expensive smartphone. But anyway here is how to use your smartphone as a webcam for your Zoom broadcast.
The first approach is to download two applications aside from your Zoom client software which I assume you already have on either your computer or at least you can access it via the web.
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Download the DroidCam application on both Android and Windows PC and that can be found on the website Dev47Apps which is probably the developer of the software.
Next is to install the application and then turn on your Wi-Fi router if you have one in order to connect your smartphone with your computer.
Step 1: Connect Droidcam to your PC
To do this, turn on your wireless router or whichever Wi-Fi network you have chosen to use and then open the DroidCam application. Do the same with your computer and then enter the information on your smartphone to the corresponding fields on the desktop version e.g: Proxy and IP Address. then click Connect. If the connection is correct, then you should see the Droidcam desktop app becoming a viewfinder for your smartphone which now acts as the camera.
Step 2: Connect Zoom with your Droidcam camera
Next is to head over to Zoom.com and then login into your account or simply download the Zoom desktop application then head to the Video settings where you get to select Droidcam as the primary camera for your Zoom calls.
That said, you get a better look and feel rather than the really horrible-looking 1MP cameras that come with the majority of PCs out there. You get to tap into limitless possibilities such as 108MP from devices such as the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra or the good camera systems from Google Pixel.
Things you’ll need for better communication include a smartphone tripod, a simple light or you can just sit by your window side for natural light, however, this kind of setup can help you maximize Zoom and do more such as hosting webinars or tutorials via the system.
