The fact that phones haven’t been able to to this easily/natively/what have you is wild. Similarly, the fact that you can’t use old tablets as external monitors without, in my experience of quite a few, significantly buggy software that’s got significant lag in the best of times, is pretty wild. Sure, the technical hurdles aren’t small, but damn.
I’ve got a reasonably high end newish tablet (Galaxy S7+) that I can use miracast to use wirelessly as an extra PC monitor. It works quite well… if I’m near to a high quality new router. But can I just plug the tablet in and use it as a monitor with my laptop? Not remotely well.
It’s been a year or two, maybe I should check for new software again.
I hope we’ll see more of this as USB type C DisplayPort Alt Mode catches on.
Not available on Pixel
Duet display works well
I hate that this is only just now coming in Android 14. I have old phones I would love to be able to set up as webcams for 3D print monitoring, but of course they haven’t been updated in years and will never get this feature.
This is already possible - there are apps that will let you use any android phone as an IP camera, which you can then view from any other computer or phone on the same WiFi/network
there are many apps that will let you do this. I use an app called IP Webcam
Sure, I tried the same app actually, but it needing to go over the network was a pretty big drawback. This sounds like a wired connection that will be recognized as a camera by any PC.
Lenovo has a few tablets with HDMI input, but yeah it should be a basic feature over usb-c for all devices.
A Philips phone did that and it wasn’t even Android, probably like 15 years ago.
I would suggest trying spacedesk. It’s not great, but when it works it even works over USB.
Probably a response to Apple’s “Continuity Camera”, which is pretty slick and seamless
Makes sense, especially now working from home is a thing that we’re allowed to do.
and how about Desktop Mode on older Google Pixels, Google?
Native bluetooth trackpad would be nice too.