MoblCam 📱→💻

Turn your Android phone into a wireless webcam — streamed over SRT directly to your PC as a virtual camera device.

How It Works

Android Phone                        PC
┌──────────────────┐                ┌──────────────────────┐
│  MoblCam App     │                │  receiver.py         │
│  (SRT Caller)    │  ──Wi-Fi/USB─► │  (SRT Listener)      │
│                  │                │  FFmpeg → pyvirtualcam│
└──────────────────┘                └──────────────────────┘
         ↕ mDNS auto-discovery (_moblcam._udp)

1. The Android app captures video/audio and broadcasts itself via mDNS (Network Service Discovery).
2. The PC receiver script discovers the phone automatically on the local network using Zeroconf.
3. Video is streamed over SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) for low-latency, reliable delivery.
4. The PC script pipes the stream through FFmpeg into a virtual camera device, making it available to any app (OBS, Zoom, Teams, etc.).

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Requirements

Android App

• Android 7.0 (API 24) or higher
• Camera and microphone permissions
• On the same Wi-Fi network as the PC (or connected via USB tethering)

PC Receiver

• Python 3.x
• FFmpeg installed and available on your system PATH
  • Download: https://ffmpeg.org/download.html
• A virtual camera driver:
  • Windows: OBS Virtual Camera or Unity Capture
  • Linux: v4l2loopback kernel module
  • macOS: OBS Virtual Camera

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Setup & Usage

1. PC Receiver

Install dependencies:

cd pc_utility
pip install -r requirements.txt

Run the receiver:

python receiver.py

The script will search the local network for MoblCam and connect automatically once the app starts streaming.

2. Android App

Build and install the app via Android Studio, or sideload the APK.

1. Open MoblCam on your phone.
2. Grant Camera and Microphone permissions when prompted.
3. Press Start Streaming.

The app will:

• Begin broadcasting video over SRT on port 5000
• Register itself on the local network via mDNS so the PC can find it automatically

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Features

Feature	Details
Protocol	SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) — low-latency, loss-resilient
Auto-discovery	mDNS / DNS-SD — no manual IP configuration needed
Adaptive Bitrate	Adjusts encoding bitrate based on Wi-Fi signal strength
Wired support	Detects USB/Ethernet connection and forces 20 Mbps
Flash toggle	Enable/disable the phone torch while streaming
Zoom control	In-app slider for 1×–5× zoom
Default resolution	1080p @ 30 fps
Virtual camera output	Appears as a webcam in OBS, Zoom, Teams, etc.

Adaptive Bitrate Thresholds

Wi-Fi Signal (RSSI)	Target Bitrate
> -50 dBm (Excellent)	15 Mbps
> -60 dBm (Good)	10 Mbps
> -70 dBm (Fair)	5 Mbps
≤ -70 dBm (Poor)	2 Mbps
Wired (USB/Ethernet)	20 Mbps

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Project Structure

moblcam/
├── app/                          # Android application
│   └── src/main/
│       ├── AndroidManifest.xml
│       └── java/com/example/moblcam/
│           ├── MainActivity.kt               # App entry point
│           ├── CameraScreen.kt               # Main UI (Jetpack Compose)
│           └── network/
│               ├── StreamManager.kt          # SRT camera stream control
│               ├── NsdHelper.kt              # mDNS service registration
│               └── AdaptiveBitrateController.kt  # Wi-Fi-aware bitrate tuning
│
└── pc_utility/                   # Python PC receiver
    ├── receiver.py               # Auto-discovers phone & outputs virtual camera
    └── requirements.txt          # Python dependencies

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Android Dependencies

Library	Purpose
Jetpack Compose + Material 3	UI framework
CameraX	Camera hardware access
RootEncoder	SRT streaming engine
Accompanist Permissions	Runtime permission handling

PC Dependencies

Package	Purpose
zeroconf	mDNS discovery to find the phone
pyvirtualcam	Feed frames into a virtual camera device
opencv-python	Frame processing utilities
ffmpeg (system)	Decode SRT stream to raw frames

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Permissions (Android)

Permission	Reason
CAMERA	Capture video
RECORD_AUDIO	Capture audio
INTERNET	Stream over the network
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE	Detect network type for ABR
ACCESS_WIFI_STATE	Read Wi-Fi RSSI for ABR