Choosing the primary camera on a web application with multiple rear cameras using WebRTC

Having a bit of trouble developing a web app that can capture images from the browser's back camera. The challenge lies in identifying which camera is the main one in a multi-camera setup.

The issue we're running into is that each manufacturer uses different naming conventions, and the order of cameras in the list doesn't necessarily indicate which one is the main camera with the highest resolution (i.e., not wide-angle, telephoto, periscope, etc.).

For example, when using this website: , on my device, the main camera could be labeled as either "camera 2 2" or "camera 2 0": https://i.stack.imgur.com/xg20U.png

Is there a way to programmatically locate the main camera using JavaScript? Or perhaps retrieve camera characteristics to dynamically select the correct one?

Answer №1

Just a heads up, I stumbled upon a brief note in the Android documentation:

“the primary camera devices (first rear/front camera in the camera ID list)”

This is where I came across it

Answer №2

In situations where all else fails, you have the option to retrieve MediaStreams from rear-facing cameras and progressively enhance their resolutions using MediaStreamTrack.applyConstraints (which permits real-time adjustment of video resolution) until either it ceases to work or the resolution growth plateaus. While not ideal, this approach could prove beneficial in the absence of alternatives.

Answer №3

If you're unsure whether the WebRTC API provides information on the "main" camera, you can use the constraints parameter when calling getUserMedia to specify the back camera (the one facing away from the user). This should result in fetching the back camera that is typically considered the "main" camera.

To select the back camera, set facingMode as environment. More details on facingMode values can be found here.

var constraints = {
  facingMode: { exact: "environment" }
  // add any other constraint you want here
};

navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia(constraints)
.then(function(stream) {
  /* use the stream */
})
.catch(function(err) {
  /* handle the error */
});

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