Videoconference meetings are becoming more common. If you do not have a webcam it can be a problem, but on the iPhone you always have a more than decent camera that can become a webcam. In this article we discuss how you can easily do it through an application.
Why is it recommended to use iPhone as a webcam?
It is a reality that the Mac camera is not too good. Sometimes it counts to understand that a device as expensive as a Mac does not have a decent camera for video conferencing. It may also be the case that the camera on the Mac and even on the PC is broken or non-existent. This is why the iPhone itself can be used as a webcam.
Whether you have a Mac or a Windows PC , you can use your mobile phone or a webcam to offer us much more quality in all aspects. The possibility of using the phone’s own flash and obviously the quality it offers to take photography we will have to make video conferences. The problem will be that while we are using the mobile phone as a webcam, the rest of the functions cannot be used. But this may be worth it if we need a webcam and we do not have it on the PC or we want more quality than that offered by a Mac.
Epocam, the app to transform the iPhone into a webcam
Compatible with both iOS and Android, Epocam is the ideal application to transform a mobile device into a webcam. It can be connected in a really easy way via WiFi to a Windows or macOS computer to stream in one of the many compatible applications.
The first thing to do is to have the iPhone connected in the same WiFi network as the computer . The connection through a USB cable is also valid if there is a case of not being in a room with WiFi and only connection via LAN. Once both teams have been connected, you must download the drivers that we find on the official website of the developers. They are available for both macOS and Windows , so the iPhone can communicate with these two operating systems without problem. These drivers open and run in a very simple and fast way with very little weight.
When the drivers are already installed, you simply have to go to the App Store and install the EpocCam application that will allow you to have all the controls of a camcorder on your iPhone.
Once you run the application, we will see how the instructions are given. But if you have the drivers installed, it will instantly track the compatible device nearby and start displaying the camera image. It will only be necessary to configure in the application that you want to use this camera as if it were a traditional connected camera. There are many applications compatible with this service such as Skype, OBS, Zoom, among others. This is why there will not be any type of problem and the use is really simple since executing it will begin to broadcast and you can always alternate between front and rear cameras.
Advantages of the pro version
In the free version you will have all these basic features. But if you want to go a little further and have 1080p quality, you must choose to pay a subscription to open up the range of possibilities. In addition to providing higher quality, the payment allows you to manually choose the type of connection, the audio support and use the flashlight in a dark environment.
The autofocus and the option to switch between the lenses on the main camera is something tremendously interesting. Obviously, this upgrade is worth doing if you are going to put heavy use to the webcam function. If it is for a specific moment, it does not make much sense to make that type of payment since we will not be taking advantage of it.
