No webcam? No problem

We don't all have a working webcam and purchasing one to use occasionally is not always a wise decision.

If you've got an Android 12+ device with a built-in camera and a PC/laptop running Linux, you're all set! scrcpy (pronounced screen copy) enables the mirroring of an Android device's camera as a webcam, among other features.

Install scrcpy

To get started, follow these instructions to install scrcpy on your system.

Install Video4Linux

Install v4l2loopback-dkms on your system so that your Android device can send the video stream to a virtual v4l2 loopback device. You can find the installation steps for your Linux distro online.

Create a virtual video device

Create a virtual video device to stream your Android device camera's feed to:

sudo modprobe v4l2loopback

List video devices

List all video devices on your system to check whether the virtual video device has been created (the following command should output /dev/videoN, where N is an integer):

v4l2-ctl --list-devices

Enable USB debugging

Enable USB debugging on your Android device.

Connect Android device

Connect your Android device to your PC/laptop, preferably via USB.

Stream video

For the sake of simplicity, let's say your virtual video device is /dev/video0 and your Android device camera's resolution is 1920x1080. Stream your camera feed (if a window pops up on your Android device, prompting you to allow USB debugging, allow it):

scrcpy --v4l2-sink=/dev/video0 --video-source=camera --camera-facing=front --no-audio --camera-size=1920x1080 --orientation=flip0

Detach the virtual video device

You can delete the virtual video device after you've disconnected your Android device from your PC/laptop:

sudo modprobe v4l2loopback -r

References

This article was inspired by Abish Vijayan's article.