Article in App of the Week category.

Camo is the convenient, pro-quality webcam app you need while working from home

Chances are when you're reading this, you aren't in an office building. You're at home, at your makeshift desk. We're betting even pants are a…

Reincubate Camo App icon Chances are when you're reading this, you aren't in an office building. You're at home, at your makeshift desk. We're betting even pants are a 50/50 likelihood at this point. In an effort to make working remote feel less remote, companies have started to rely more heavily on live video conferences. At the same time, most computer's webcams are woefully underwhelming. This is a recipe to make you look your worst. Camo is here to step up and allow you to use your iPhone as a high-end webcam replacement. So whether you are taking a meeting with your team, giving an on-camera interview from home, taking a Zoom call with family, or streaming online, Camo is here to up your game.

Camo is an app that lives both on your iPhone as well as your Mac or PC. When connected, it recognizes your iPhone as a webcam allowing you to use it in many popular apps that rely on a webcam. Think Zoom, Meet, Microsoft Teams, Skype, Slack video chat, Google Chrome, WebEx Teams, and more. It is easy to use, easy to set up, gets you a great picture, and is always with you.

Rather than grainy, 720P resolution with terrible noise in low light, Camo shoots you in full 1080P. That image is also exceedingly tunable. Within Camo for your Mac or PC, you can crop in, correct the colors based on the lighting, switch the lenses on your iPhone if you happen to be rocking a "Pro" iPhone, change the focus, and more. Since that is all done on the computer, you can place your phone and forget about it while adjusting in the Camo app for your Mac or PC. We've used just a normal iPhone dock to film with but there are plenty of other clips and mounts that make it easy to get a good angle for your camera. Heck, even just leaning it against a stack of books works well without any fuss.

The degree of control you get over the camera is what impressed us early on with Camo. Few, if any, other webcams let us get this granular with our tweaks. If you're looking for the full list of adjustments, here they are. With Camo you can change the focus, white balance, exposure, brightness, temperature, hue, saturation, contrast, gamma, sharpness, shutter speed, ISO, and tint. Those can all be saved to your own presets. You can have one for the office, one for your home office, and just maybe one for your couch.

Another issue we run into often is a live preview of how you look. Not just how you look, but the scope of the shot. Ever go to jump into a Google Meet call only to realize that your webcam is picking up that massive pile of laundry in the corner you thought you pushed far enough to the side? Yeah. With Camo, you always get a preview before you even start the call so you always know what your camera sees before everyone else does.

Reincubate Camo App screens

Other massively helpful features include the fact you don't need any additional hardware, there are no funky drivers that need to be installed, it works on iPhone, iPad, and even the still- kicking iPod touch. Dark Mode support is baked in for a beautiful native look, and a global pause/resume shortcut makes it simple to pause your video regardless of what app you're currently using it in. Look. We don't think anyone is ever really overjoyed to be jumping on a video call from home. But if you have to do it, you can at least look your best. Camo is launching now with a free version that includes limited access to advanced features and adds a small watermark to your image, but a paid version gets you everything you need.

At $40 a year, Camo isn't cheap. But this isn't supposed to just be a replacement for the webcam on your Mac or even a mid-tier Logitech model. This is intended to replace a dedicated camera such as connecting a Nikon up to your PC. That's just how good quality it is able to capture. If you are just using this while working from home, or want to make sure you can get the best picture possible while not breaking the bank, the price tag absolutely makes sense.

But enough about other people's apps.

LET'S TALK ABOUT YOURS

More Articles By Andrewo

Recent Articles

Previous post Writing Performant Layouts July 23, 2020
Next post Jungled makes a household task less of a chore August 5, 2020