The quality aspect is obviously important but I'd suggest that the location of the lens is also vital if you don't want to have meetings where everyone seems to be not looking at you.
I cannot wait until cameras work behind the screen and can be positioned right in the center but for now, the only option I found was something called Center Cam that mounts a small lense on a skinny support that can be positioned over the screen, somewhat unobtrusively.
I am a Camo user too and it's incredible but having the phone off to one side in a tripod or mount exacerbates the "here's (not) looking at you" issue.
I started a project that uses Camo and suspends the phone upside down from the top of the screen via a 3D printed mount. Then, an app on the phone, mirrors the portion of the screen that is covered by the phone. Not perfect (or even close) and it means you need to use the lower quality front facing camera but it fun to dabble.
Random rant, maybe not the right place and certainly not targeted at you but: I hate nothing more than trying to accomplish productive work on a video call. Virtual meetings would work better so much better for me like this:
1. As low latency on the audio as possible, so people can lightly talk over each other like in meatspace.
2. If you really want to be able to gauge people's reactions as you're talking, or whatever reason people like to see each others faces, you get Tom Goes to the Mayor-style avatars which animate slowly (once per second?) in response to the user's movements. No need to send a full video feed over the wire.
The experience of tiled window panes with our heads floating in front of blurry living rooms and nobody looking anywhere near the same place just sucks.
As someone that puts a cover on their camera since I am in various states of compromise in front of it I'm not looking forward to a camera I can not cover.
That’s a super neat idea! I have a feeling the inevitable solution to this need will be a combo of a tech like Apple’s Center Stage and some sort of eye-focusing alteration to the image, like a live deep fake of yourself (just the eyes). Software-only means widespread adoption.
FaceTime actually did the eye adjustment thing for a bit, but they disabled it. Not sure why, it seemed to work okay. Maybe it freaked people out though.
I appreciate the cleverness of your approach. But is it possible to take a C290-ish webcam, chop off the left and right, and maybe the top and bottom, until it is the width of a dime, so I can suspend it in the middle of my screen? Unlike the thread's original post, I am not overly concerned with image quality, but the "not looking" effect that you mention is an issue for me.
Cool. Thanks, somehow I didn't understand that it is a product instead of an idea. (I have a microphone and can put it off camera. The quality of the picture is not critical for my application, and my personal eye does not find it a bother. I just want to look at the screen.)
That's another device (and cost) to absorb. And not a small device at that.. I like the idea of the centre for 2-4 hours of meetings, then I just put it away.
It's really just a piece of glass and some black fabric to keep the light out, very inexpensive and super useful compared to all the engineering solutions suggested here^^
I cannot wait until cameras work behind the screen and can be positioned right in the center but for now, the only option I found was something called Center Cam that mounts a small lense on a skinny support that can be positioned over the screen, somewhat unobtrusively.
I am a Camo user too and it's incredible but having the phone off to one side in a tripod or mount exacerbates the "here's (not) looking at you" issue.
I started a project that uses Camo and suspends the phone upside down from the top of the screen via a 3D printed mount. Then, an app on the phone, mirrors the portion of the screen that is covered by the phone. Not perfect (or even close) and it means you need to use the lower quality front facing camera but it fun to dabble.