Your laptop’s built-in webcam doesn’t hold a candle to the best Android phones out there when it comes to video quality, which is why many people use their Android phone as a webcam for their PC. The only problem with this approach is that it’s not as convenient to set up, which is why most people settle for external webcams that are usually plug-and-play. That’s why we were initially excited to see that Google is bringing native webcam functionality to Pixel phones with an upcoming Android 14 update. However, after actually trying it out for ourselves, our excitement has waned.
Those of you who are running Android 14 on your Pixel phone might be a bit confused because this native webcam functionality is nowhere to be found. That’s because it’s only included in the Android 14 QPR beta releases right now. The way this feature works under the hood is quite complicated, but all you really need to know is that it turns your Android phone into a standard USB webcam that most PCs running Windows, macOS, or Linux will recognize. All you have to do is connect your phone to your PC via USB, pull down the notifications panel on your phone, open the USB preferences page, and then change the USB mode to “Webcam.”
