Dylan's Advent of Cool Nerd Things Day 3: Reincubate Camo

2020 was the year that webcams suddenly became a big deal. For folks who’d already been working remote for a while, it was no surprise how important camera and audio quality are for video meetings - Scott Hanselman wrote a great post about this back in August last year - but with the entire world suddenly working from home, webcams sold out pretty much everywhere back in March and lots of folks have been working remote using their laptop’s built-in camera.

Of course, most of those folks also have a smartphone, and the camera in most modern smartphones is truly astonishing, which raises the question: can I use the camera in my phone as a webcam? There are several apps out there that claim to do this, and I’m pretty sure I’ve tried all of them, but the first one that’s actually worked for me is Camo by Reincubate.

I’ve tried it with an iPhone 6S and an iPhone SE, on a 2014 Macbook Pro and a couple of different Windows machines, and been really, really impressed. It just works. Run the installer, install the app, connect your phone using a USB cable, and it works. The image quality is fantastic; the free version gives you control over the camera’s focus and resolution, and if you pay £34.99 for the Pro version, you get full control over your phone camera’s exposure, white balance and various other settings.

Plus - did I mention the image quality is good? Here is in Zoom, side-by-side with my Logitech C920 HD webcam:

It’s on macOS and Windows, but it’s iPhone only (sorry, Android fans.) The consumer version of Camo for Windows is still in beta - there’s a signup form on their site; I’ve been running it on Windows for a month or so without any problems at all, including running it alongside four other cameras in a really elaborate multi-cam streaming setup.

Oh, and apparently there’s a 40% off until December 4th if you sign up with the code CYBERCAMO.

Check it out: https://reincubate.com/camo/

Part of #Nerdvent: Dylan's Advent of Cool Nerd Things 2020