Up and running in about two minutes
- Get the desktop app. On Windows run
TelescopeSetup.exe (it installs only for your user and needs no admin). On Linux extract the tarball and run ./start.sh.
- Follow the checklist it opens with. It sets up the virtual camera, puts the phone app on your phone with a QR code and pairs the two.
- Pick the camera in your app. It's called Telescope on Windows and Phone Camera on Linux, in Discord, Zoom, OBS or anything else that takes a webcam.
- Python 3.12 or newer
v4l2loopback from your distro, for the virtual camera (sudo apt install v4l2loopback-dkms on Debian and Ubuntu, sudo dnf install v4l2loopback on Fedora with RPM Fusion)adb only if you want USB. Wi-Fi works without it
Manual setup has the rest, including Ubuntu 22.04's older Python.
No Android phone? Browser camera streams from an iPhone, a tablet or an old laptop straight from its browser with nothing to install.
More than a webcam
Plug the phone in or use Wi-Fi and run up to four phones at once, each as its own webcam. The phone's mic can be your microphone too.
Most of these are plugins you switch on when you want them, along with Colour grading, Privacy blur, a Name tag, Notes next to the lens and others. You can install plugins other people made too.
Everything Telescope can do is in the docs, along with how it compares with DroidCam, Iriun and Camo.
Questions people ask
Yes. Every feature, every resolution, no watermark, no ads. If you'd like to chip in anyway, there's Ko-fi.
No. It goes straight from the phone to your computer, over USB or your own network, encrypted with TLS. There's no account and no cloud, and the apps only go online to check GitHub for updates, or to fetch adb or VB-Cable from Google or VB-Audio when you ask for them. Use it only on a network you trust or switch on Local only - USB in the Android app. Details in Privacy.
If it can use a webcam, yes. Telescope shows up there as an ordinary camera and you pick it like any other one.
The phone app is Android only, but Browser camera streams from an iPhone's browser with nothing to install. The desktop app runs on Windows and Linux, not macOS.
It needs Android 8 or newer. Device compatibility lists what's been tested. If you try it on a phone that isn't there, let me know how it went. That's one of the most useful things you can do for the project.
Telescope-windows-portable.zip on the releases page has the same app. Extract it and run TelescopeDesktop.exe, keeping it in its folder since the lib-... folder next to it is part of the app.
Yes, I use AI agents for a big part of the project. The code is generated but what Telescope does and how it should behave is my design, and testing on real hardware is also mostly done by me (automated tests aside).
Stuck, or have an idea? Ask in Discussions. Found a bug? Open an issue with your Copy diagnostics report. Troubleshooting covers the common problems.
Helping out
Device reports, bug reports with a diagnostics report and pull requests are all welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md has the details and the docs explain how it's built.
Telescope is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. Licenses explains what that means for you and lists the third-party parts it uses.
