Your Android Phone Could Soon Become Your PC’s Webcam: Microsoft Phone Link May Add Camera Streaming Feature

An excellent utility if you possess a current Samsung flagship running Android 14 is Microsoft Phone Link, formerly known as Microsoft Your Phone. Both the associate link on the Windows app and the phone link app are included in this tool. Combining phones with Android allows you to manage your phone from your PC, which is the closest thing we have to mimicking the ecosystem synergy between Windows and Android. As the business is reportedly working on enabling you to use your Android phone as a camera with a Windows computer, Microsoft could soon be adding another sync option to the list.

The most recent version of the Phone Link software for Android, as discovered by the source Android Authority, has managed video streaming from the phone’s camera to your Windows PC. It appears that Microsoft intends to provide communications between your phone and PC, even if the code never makes it clear that this is for a webcam-based function. The code in the most recent version of Microsoft’s Link to Windows program (v1.23102.190.0) suggests the possibility of a camera streaming function.

This implies that you might use your Android phone as a webcam by starting a camera feed from it to your Windows computer. While webcam isn’t mentioned in the code directly, there are hints that point to a relationship with video calls. More specifically, “Tap this notification to allow your PC to stream your camera video” would be displayed as a notification. Additionally, there are strings that control when to stop and resume the video as well as if the phone is too hot to broadcast. Video effects are also covered, including stabilisation, several filters, HDR, and more.

Users may apply effects to the video stream, such as “auto-framing,” as per some code strings. Moreover, error messages are sent to a lot of users when the phone becomes too hot when using the camera. As of right now, Phone Link reflects your phone’s camera and video conference applications on your computer’s screen. The list of applications that are compatible with this camera feed capability is currently empty. This feature’s release date is uncertain; however, there is conjecture that it may happen early in the next year, maybe in tandem with the introduction of new Windows devices that use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite platform.