The picture quality of webcams that come with computers is generally not good, so many users choose to use external webcams and many others use their phones as webcams, but this requires the installation of third-party applications. Now Google may be working on a way to turn a user’s Android phone into a plug-and-play USB webcam.
Mishaal Rahman, a frequent Android analyst, revealed on Twitter today that Google may be adding support for turning Android phones into USB webcams. “service.
The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) is an open source operating system development project for native Android maintained by Google that allows anyone to review and contribute code and patches under the direction and supervision of Google.
The “DeviceAsWebcam” service is described as “a new service that turns Android devices into webcams. As Rahman explains, this will work on Android devices that support the standard UVC (USB Video Class) gadget mode, which allows sending video data.
Turning your phone into a webcam is nothing new and, as mentioned, there are apps that enable this feature. But this will be the first time that Android will natively support turning your phone into a UVC gadget without the help of a third-party app.
Whether Google decides to include this feature in a future OS update is unknown, but to use this new feature now, Rahman notes that the device’s kernel may need to be compiled with CONFIG_USB_CONFIGFS_F_UVC=y first, and an app or service is still technically required for it to work.
