I found out that my Android phone's cam has a higher quality than the one of my PC and I'm wondering if there is a way to use my phone as a webcam for the computer. Is that possible?
USB (preferred), Bluetooth and LAN connections are all suitable as any other solution that doesn't require any expense (otherwise I would just buy a webcam), but I would prefer to use only open source software if possible.
You can use any Android phone as a webcam for your Ubuntu PC by using DroidCam.
First download the DroidCam app on your android device via the Play Store.
Next install adb on your Ubuntu PC:
sudo apt install adb
Follow the instructions to install the DroidCam Linux client.
On your android phone, enable USB debugging (you need to enable developer mode to do this).
Find the drivers for your device:
This page provides links to most manufacturers websites: http://developer.android.com/tools/extras/oem-usb.html#Drivers.
You can also search Google “ADB Drivers for ___”
Plug the device back into computer over USB. If you get a dialog asking Allow USB Debugging, you need to tap OK.
Open DroidCam and select the USB option. On the phone you may get a dialog asking Allow USB Debugging, you need to tap OK. Sometimes you need to open USB Options from the notification area on the device and pick PTP mode for that to show up.
For more information on how to set up DroidCam, click here.
To use your android phone as a microphone, check out WO Mic.
To install the Linux client see this.
You will also need to download the WO Mic app from the PlayStore.
Theoretically you can use both WO Mic and DroidCam in conjunction to turn your Android device into a webcam with a microphone.
Using OBS Studio (on your PC) you can use a smartphone (or other PC, as long as it has a recent browser) to create a virtual microphone/camera input that can be used in any application on your PC (e.g. Zoom, Discord, Chrome, etc.).
First open a site like https://obs.ninja/ or https://kevin.c3voc.de/ on the smartphone to create a stream URL that you can connect to in OBS. Now that you've got your stream URL, create a new "source" in OBS and select the "Browser" type. Use the generated URL from your smartphone as the browser source's URL in OBS on the receiving device.
Now click the "Start Virtual Camera" button (under "Start Recording") in the "Controls" panel. If you don't see it, you may need to install v4l2loopback as mentioned in the answers on this AskUbuntu question:
sudo apt install v4l2loopback-dkms v4l2loopback-utils
The solution suggested by @azrdev ist pretty neat, because now OBS Studio for Linux does have the "Browser Plugin" and with this solution you can also benefit from all the other nice OBS features.
Instead of using a site like obs.ninja, I installed the Android app "IP Webcam" on my phone. With the app, you can start "broadcasting" your phone's video signal in your wireless network. With your computer and your smartphone in the same wireless network, you just add an browser source in OBS with the IP adress given to you by IP Webcam.
And that's it! Got it to work in about three minutes...
