Now you can use your telephone as a Swap 2 webcam

The Swap 2’s lack of a built-in digicam means you want an exterior one for GameChat video calls. However now, in case your telephone is a Google Pixel, you do not even want a type of. Android Authority reported on Friday that the 2 now work properly collectively (with no need third-party apps), and our checks affirm that.

Google has technically supported the usage of Android units as exterior webcams for 2 years: The corporate added it in a quarterly replace for Android 14. (Particularly, it added the flexibility for units to make use of USB Video Class mode, or UVC.) However that performance did not work with the Swap 2 earlier than the November Pixel Drop.

How do we all know it was that model? Properly, earlier than our Editor-in-Chief, Aaron Souppouris, put in November’s replace on a Pixel, the Swap 2 webcam function did not work. After updating to that one at the moment (however earlier than putting in the December replace), it labored.

If that wasn’t sufficient, the November firmware’s launch notes listed a “repair for a difficulty the place webcam mode doesn’t work correctly with linked units beneath sure circumstances.” That just about cinches it. Regardless, we reached out to Google for official affirmation, and we’ll replace this story if we hear again.