How to use your smartphone as a webcam on Windows and Mac

How to use your smartphone as a webcam on Windows and Mac: No one can deny that webcams have become a necessity these days. People need webcams if they want to attend online meetings or have a friendly video chat with distant friends. However, many mid-range laptops, like the one I use, don't come with a webcam. So there are only two options left. You can spend money buying a new webcam or using your phone as a Windows webcam. I would recommend the second option as it does not burn a hole in your pocket.

How to use your smartphone as a webcam on Windows and Mac: No one can deny that webcams have become a necessity these days. People need webcams if they want to attend online meetings or have a friendly video chat with distant friends.

However, many mid-range laptops, like the one I use, don't come with a webcam. So there are only two options left. You can spend money buying a new webcam or using your phone as a Windows webcam. I would recommend the second option as it does not burn a hole in your pocket.

However, most people don't know how to use their Android or iOS phones as webcams. Don't worry because in this article we will walk you through everything.

How to use your smartphone as a webcam on Windows and Linux

First, before following the steps below to use your phone as a webcam, make sure your smartphone and Windows PC are using the same WiFi connection. However, you can also use a USB cable to connect your phone to the Windows PC.

If any of the above is checked, go ahead and follow the steps:

1. Download the Droidcam Wireless Webcam app on your smartphone.
2. Note: Requires Android 5.0 or later.
3. Now download and install the Droidcam client for your Windows PC.
4. Note: The client is also available for Linux, but not for Mac OS.
5. Launch the Droidcam client on your PC and you will see that it will ask you for a device IP. So it's time to launch the Droidcam app on your smartphone.

Note: The client is set to the default WiFi setting. However, you can also choose to connect via USB.

4. When you launch the app, ignore everything to go to the page where you see your device's IP.

5. Now type that same device IP on the desktop client.

Note: To choose between the front and rear cameras, click the three-dot icon> Settings> Camera in the Droidcam app. I would recommend using the rear camera as it will give you better video quality.

6. On the desktop client, check the video and audio options. If the audio option is not checked, your microphone will not pick up any sound.

7. Finally, click Start to see if you have successfully used your Android phone as a webcam.

If everything works well, launch the video conferencing application you generally use and select Droidcam as the camera. And that's all! You now know how to use Android phones as a webcam.

Note: The DroidCam app is also available for the iPhone and works exactly like the Android version of the app. However, the desktop client for DroidCam is only available for Windows and Linux. So if you want to use your Android or iOS smartphone as a webcam on macOS, go ahead and read on.

Use your smartphone as a webcam on MacOS

To use your phone as a webcam on MacOS, you must follow a process similar to that of Android. However, this time the wireless webcam application you will be using is EpocCam, which has a desktop client for Windows and macOS. In addition, this application can be used for Android and iOS smartphones.

Note: To use your mobile phone as a webcam, make sure that your macOS system and your smartphone are connected with the same WiFi.

The best thing about EpocCam webcam software is that you don't have to do extra things like you did with DroidCam. If you are connected with the same WiFi, launch the EpocCam application on your smartphone then the desktop client.

If you get the video stream from the application on the desktop client, go ahead and select EpocCam as the camera in your preferred video-conferencing application.

The only bad thing about EpocCam is that it's not completely free. The free version has many restrictions. For example, your video resolution is limited to 640 × 480. In addition, in the free version, you cannot use the microphone on your iPhone. So if you want to use the free version, make sure you have good quality headphones with a microphone.

However, you can get rid of all these limitations by getting the Pro version of EpocCam. For iPhone, you can upgrade to EpocCam Pro for $ 7.99, and for Android, you have to pay $ 5.49 for the upgrade.

These are the methods by which you can use your iPhone or Android smartphone as a webcam. We hope you were able to follow the steps without encountering any problems. However, if you have any problems, let me know in the comments below!