TetherCam vs OBS Phone Cam

Your iPhone, instead of a webcam. TWO APPS, ONE CABLE TetherCam is two free apps. TetherCam for Mac is downloaded from tethercam.app; TetherCam for iPhone is this one. Install both, connect the phone to the Mac with the USB cable you already own, and the iPhone shows up as the camera "TetherCam" on the Mac, in the same camera picker as the built-in one. It works in every Mac app that lists system cameras: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, FaceTime, QuickTime Player, Safari, Chrome and the rest. Zoom and Microsoft Teams were verified on 10 September 2026. Nothing travels over Wi-Fi, nothing passes through a server, nothing is uploaded anywhere. There is no account, no pairing code and no discovery step. The cable is the whole path, which is why the picture stays stable in a crowded room where wireless cameras start to stutter. WHAT YOU NEED An iPhone with iOS 17 or newer, a Mac with macOS 14 or newer, and the USB cable that came with the phone. The free TetherCam Mac app asks once for approval of its camera extension in System Settings; after that the camera is simply there. THE HONEST LIMITS The Mac app carries the picture only. A Mac camera extension has no audio stream, so the sound stays with the Mac's own microphone. Audio over the cable exists, but only on the OBS path below. This iPhone app stays open in the foreground while it sends. The phone serves one receiver at a time. The Mac app and the OBS plugin are not used together; whichever connects second is told that the line is busy. ON THE PHONE Live preview from the moment you open the app, before anything is connected. A camera and lens picker for the wide, ultra wide and telephoto lenses or the front camera, switching the stream immediately. Automatic rotation that follows the horizon rather than the interface. Turn the phone and the picture stays level, because the orientation is resolved on the capture side. There is a manual angle override when you want to decide yourself. Hardware HEVC encoding, which keeps the phone cool and the latency low. A diagnostics panel that shows what is actually happening: listener state, connection, frames per second, bitrate and the measured levelling residual. FOR STREAMING AND RECORDING: OBS STUDIO The TetherCam plugin for OBS Studio is the pro path, also free and also at tethercam.app. It adds a source called TetherCam directly in OBS, finds the phone through the same cable, and it is the only path that brings the microphone of the phone across as well. PRIVACY No account, no analytics, no advertising, no purchases. The camera picture goes to your own Mac and nowhere else. Nothing is collected. TetherCam for iPhone is free and open source under the MIT licence at github.com/Kanevry/tethercam.

Your phone already has a far better camera than most webcams. OBS Phone Cam puts it to work in OBS Studio over your own Wi-Fi, with nothing extra to install on your computer. GET GOING IN A MINUTE 1. Put your phone and your computer on the same Wi-Fi. 2. Open OBS Phone Cam, pick a quality, and tap Start. 3. In OBS, add a Browser source and paste the address the app shows you. That is the whole setup. No cable, no dongle, no capture card, no drivers, and no plugin to add to OBS. A PICTURE WORTH SHOWING • Go all the way up to 4K, or choose 1080p at 60 frames a second when you want smooth motion • Your phone's own video chip does the hard work, so the picture stays clean and the phone stays cool • Almost no delay, because the video travels straight to your computer and never goes out to the internet FRAME IT THE WAY YOU LIKE • Pinch and drag on your phone to set up the shot, and your audience sees exactly what you framed • Zoom in close without the picture falling apart • Switch between your phone's lenses while you are live, wide angle included, and nobody watching drops out • Pick a shape that fits your scene: widescreen, square, or upright for vertical video • Flick the flashlight on for a bit more light, and mute the microphone whenever you like BUILT TO STAY UP • Holds the screen awake for as long as you are live, so nothing goes dark mid-stream • Finds its way back on its own if your Wi-Fi hiccups • Keep the app open on screen while you stream. iPhone stops the camera when an app is sent to the background, so switching away pauses your shot. YOUR VIDEO STAYS YOURS No accounts, no ads, and no tracking of any kind. Nothing is recorded and nothing is uploaded. Your picture and sound go straight to your own computer across your own network. On a shared network you can lock the stream with an access code. WORTH KNOWING You need a Wi-Fi network that lets your devices see each other. Guest Wi-Fi in hotels and cafes usually blocks this, so the app cannot work there. OBS and OBS Studio are trademarks of their respective owners. OBS Phone Cam is an independent app, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the OBS Project.