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.
You can plug an iPad to a MacBook via usb c and use it as an external monitor and it works really well in my experience. Kinda makes me wonder if there isn’t a patent somewhere preventing it from wider use.
It doesn’t use your wifi router, it uses a direct (peer to peer) wifi connection between your computer and the tablet, which if they’re next to each other (e.g. a laptop and a tablet), will be faster than USB.
If it’s a tower PC under a timber desk with a crappy wifi antenna, then yeah that won’t work as well as a cable. Timber is pretty effective at blocking wifi.
My statement is based on direct experience of janky frame drops between an iPad pro and a MacBook pro sitting next to each other on the couch. I suspected some potential interference issues so I went back to USB and it was buttery smooth again. Might not match your experience but in my environment that’s how it went down.
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
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.
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.
You can plug an iPad to a MacBook via usb c and use it as an external monitor and it works really well in my experience. Kinda makes me wonder if there isn’t a patent somewhere preventing it from wider use.
It should work wirelessly as well
Yeah it does, but definitely not as well. I’ve had much better results with the USB connected directly.
Huh? It works perfectly without a wire.
It doesn’t use your wifi router, it uses a direct (peer to peer) wifi connection between your computer and the tablet, which if they’re next to each other (e.g. a laptop and a tablet), will be faster than USB.
If it’s a tower PC under a timber desk with a crappy wifi antenna, then yeah that won’t work as well as a cable. Timber is pretty effective at blocking wifi.
My statement is based on direct experience of janky frame drops between an iPad pro and a MacBook pro sitting next to each other on the couch. I suspected some potential interference issues so I went back to USB and it was buttery smooth again. Might not match your experience but in my environment that’s how it went down.
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.
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