How to use your iPhone as a webcam - a musician's guide
Here’s part 30 of “how to be an online musician and work from home”! If you don’t know about this new daily mini-series, you can find out everything here.
You can now see all of the series in one place here
We all know that our phone cameras are better than our crappy built in webcams. But sometimes, we have to use our computers. Whether it’s having a bigger screen, better access to chat on video calls, or only being able to stream via computer there are times when you just have to use your computer.
The good news is I have a new favourite app that lets you connect your iPhone to your computer and use it as a webcam, and I think it not only solves a lot of problems, but creates a ton of potential. (There are equivalent apps for Android phones that I’m going to test out over Christmas).
EpocCam is an incredible app that turns your iPhone into a webcam. It connects to both Mac and Windows computers via WiFi or USB.
To be honest, this could be a really short blog as it is insanely simple to set up and works great. There are only four simple steps:
Connect phone via USB or WiFi… if you’re on the same WiFi you’ve already done this
4 Set EpocCam as the webcam on your computer
That’s… erm… it.
So, as you’re still reading, we’re going to cover which version of the app to use, and why you might want to use your iPhone as a webcam.
The main reason for doing this is that your iPhone camera is SO much better that your webcam. For example:
(Full disclaimer, these photos are from EpocCam’s website but… you get the idea)
That should be reason enough. But by using your phone it opens up so many opportunities. For a start it’s a lot easier to place the phone somewhere else so you can get a better angle of what you’re doing. This is even easier if you’re using WiFi as you could have it on the other side of the room for live concerts.
Next, you can start to get creative. You can use your phone as a second camera to have an extra angle – even Zoom has the option of sharing a second camera, and as it’s so small you can put it in unusual places. Take a look of this for example:
Having a simple top down look could be great for us musicians, especially pianists if you want to provide a look at what you’re doing on the keyboard.
Then there’s the ability to stream via your phone to things you might not be able to normally. YouTube requires you to have 1,000 subscribers to go live from your phone, but there’s no requirement on computer. So by using your iPhone as a webcam, you can go live on YouTube with the amazing quality of your phone no matter how many subscribers you have.
Ok, so which version do you want. There is EpocCam Pro ($7.99) or EpocCam (Free). Here’s the difference between the two.
The quality difference between the two is amazing. I would highly recommend paying for the Pro version, as the 640 x 480 resolution of the free version is going to be similar to your webcam.
But, I’d definitely recommend trying the free version to see if using your phone as a webcam is something you want to do. Then you can see what it’s like to connect to your computer etc without having to pay. If you then decide it’s something you want to do, I’d then definitely upgrade. After all, $7.99 is a LOT cheaper than buying a good external webcam!
I honestly love this app and hope you do too!
