Google continue working on the function that will allow you to use an Android ‘smartphone’ as a webcam for the computer in the latest Android 14 beta builds a feature that will appear when connecting the device to the PC via a USB cable.
Until now, if you want to use a terminal’s camera as a webcam alone, you need to download a third-party application to establish this connection. However, the company has worked to simplify this process to integrate the function into its operating system.
Last February, analyst Mishaal Rahman discovered that the latest update to the Android operating system included in its code a series of references to this feature and commented that this novelty would require “access to all the services that a normal application needs access” as well as read and write permission for nodes/dev/video which is how the linux kernel mounts the UVC device”.
Now, Rahman has re-shared information about the Google advances for this feature through a Twitter post as you have been able to verify by analyzing the code of the most recent versions of the Android 14 beta.
Rahman has explained that this Webcam connection mode is known internally as DeviceAsWebcam (DAW) and that it will work by connecting the mobile device to a computer through a USB connection. Thus, after choosing the webcam option once it has been connected, the mobile can be used in video calls from any application compatible with “any desktop operating system”, such as Windows or Mac.
For the moment, the analyst has indicated that the DAW application “not present” in the current beta versions of Android 14 and therefore, you can’t use this functionality yet. However, as he has been able to verify, the new option yes it is shown inside the preferences menu, that appears at make a usb connection of the ‘smartphone’ with a computer.
In addition, it has detailed that when the user selects the webcam option, the DAW application will set the USB settings to USB Video Class (UVC), which refers to the ability of some devices to broadcast video like a webcam or similar equipment does.
One of the features I was expecting to see in Android 14 was the ability to turn your phone into a USB webcam for your PC.
Google hasn’t talked about this feature yet, but I hope they still plan to ship it!
Here’s some tidbits about Android 14’s USB webcam feature 👇 pic.twitter.com/2L9iD8g8ab
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) May 26, 2023