Now you can use your telephone as a Swap 2 webcam

The Swap 2’s lack of a built-in digital camera 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 kind of. Android Authority reported on Friday that the 2 now work properly collectively (without having third-party apps), and our checks verify that.

Google has technically supported using Android units as exterior webcams for 2 years: The corporate added it in a quarterly replace for Android 14. (Particularly, it added the power 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 characteristic did not work. After updating to that one as we speak (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 problem the place webcam mode doesn’t work correctly with linked units beneath sure situations.” That just about cinches it. Regardless, we reached out to Google for official affirmation, and we’ll replace this story if we hear again.