react-native-vision-camera/docs/docs/guides/DEVICES.mdx

---
id: devices
title: Camera Devices
sidebar_label: Camera Devices
---

import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl';

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### What are camera devices?

Camera devices are the physical (or "virtual") devices that can be used to record videos or capture photos.

* **Physical**: A physical camera device is a **camera lens on your phone**. Different physical camera devices have different specifications, such as different capture formats, field of views, frame rates, focal lengths, and more. Some phones have multiple physical camera devices.

  > Examples: _"Backside Wide-Angle Camera"_, _"Frontside Wide-Angle Camera (FaceTime HD)"_, _"Ultra-Wide-Angle back camera"_.

* **Virtual**: A virtual camera device is a **combination of one or more physical camera devices**, and provides features such as _virtual-device-switchover_ while zooming or _combined photo delivery_ from all physical cameras to produce higher quality images.

  > Examples: _"Triple-Camera"_, _"Dual-Wide-Angle Camera"_

### Get available camera devices

To get a list of all available camera devices, use [the `getAvailableCameraDevices` function](/docs/api/classes/Camera#getavailablecameradevices):

```ts
const devices = await Camera.getAvailableCameraDevices()
```

Each camera device provides properties describing the features of this device. For example, a camera device provides the `hasFlash` property which is `true` if the device supports activating the flash when taking photos or recording videos.

The most important properties are:

* `devices`: A list of physical device types this camera device consists of. For a **single physical camera device**, this property is always an array of one element. **For virtual multi-cameras** this property contains all the physical camera devices that are combined to create this virtual multi-camera device
* `position`: The position of the camera device relative to the phone (`front`, `back`)
* `hasFlash`: Whether this camera device supports using the flash to take photos or record videos
* `hasTorch`: Whether this camera device supports enabling/disabling the torch at any time ([`Camera.torch` prop](/docs/api/interfaces/CameraProps#torch))
* `isMultiCam`: Determines whether the camera device is a virtual multi-camera device which contains multiple combined physical camera devices.
* `minZoom`: The minimum available zoom factor. This value is often `1`. When you pass `zoom={0}` to the Camera, the `minZoom` factor will be applied.
* `neutralZoom`: The zoom factor where the camera is "neutral". For any wide-angle cameras this property might be the same as `minZoom`, where as for ultra-wide-angle cameras ("fish-eye") this might be a value higher than `minZoom` (e.g. `2`). It is recommended that you always start at `neutralZoom` and let the user manually zoom out to `minZoom` on demand.
* `maxZoom`: The maximum available zoom factor. When you pass `zoom={1}` to the Camera, the `maxZoom` factor will be applied.
* `formats`: A list of all available formats (See [Camera Formats](formats))
* `supportsFocus`: Determines whether this camera device supports focusing (See [Focusing](focusing))

:::note
See the [`CameraDevice` type](/docs/api/interfaces/CameraDevice) for full API reference
:::

For debugging purposes you can use the `id` or `name` properties to log and compare devices. You can also use the `devices` properties to determine the physical camera devices this camera device consists of, for example:

* For a single Wide-Angle camera, this would be `["wide-angle-camera"]`
* For a Triple-Camera, this would be `["wide-angle-camera", "ultra-wide-angle-camera", "telephoto-camera"]`

You can use the helper function `parsePhysicalDeviceTypes` to convert a list of physical devices to a single device descriptor type which can also describe virtual devices:

```ts
console.log(device.devices)
//  --> ["wide-angle-camera", "ultra-wide-angle-camera", "telephoto-camera"]

const deviceType = parsePhysicalDeviceTypes(device.devices)
console.log(deviceType)
//  --> "triple-camera"
```

Always choose a camera device that is best fitted for your use-case; so you might filter out any cameras that do not support flash, have low zoom values, are not on the back side of the phone, do not contain a format with high resolution or fps, and more.

:::caution
Make sure to be careful when filtering out unneeded camera devices, since not every phone supports all camera device types. Some phones don't even have front-cameras. You always want to have a camera device, even when it's not the one that has the best features.
:::

### The `useCameraDevices` hook

VisionCamera provides a hook to make camera device selection a lot easier. You can specify a device type to only find devices with the given type:

```tsx
function App() {
  const devices = useCameraDevices('wide-angle-camera')
  const device = devices.back

  if (device == null) return <LoadingView />
  return (
    <Camera
      style={StyleSheet.absoluteFill}
      device={device}
    />
  )
}
```

Or just return the "best matching camera device". This function prefers camera devices with more physical cameras, and always ranks "wide-angle" physical camera devices first.

> Example: `triple-camera` > `dual-wide-camera` > `dual-camera` > `wide-angle-camera` > `ultra-wide-angle-camera` > `telephoto-camera` > ...

```tsx
function App() {
  const devices = useCameraDevices()
  const device = devices.back

  if (device == null) return <LoadingView />
  return (
    <Camera
      style={StyleSheet.absoluteFill}
      device={device}
    />
  )
}
```

<br />

#### 🚀 Next section: [Camera Lifecycle](lifecycle)