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Camera and microphone

The Android device can use your camera and microphone. When an app opens the device's camera it sees your live video, a photo it takes is a real photo of what your camera sees, and a recorder hears you. Agents and tests can feed the same inputs from an image or a WAV file instead.

When nothing is feeding the camera, it shows a card explaining how to turn it on.

Turn on your camera or mic

Open a session and choose Camera & mic (the video camera button) in the controls under the device, or Camera in fullscreen. Turn on the camera, the microphone, or both. Your browser asks for permission the first time.

  • A red dot beside the device's lens means your camera or microphone is live.
  • A small preview of your camera appears under the controls. Hide it with Hide preview.
  • On a phone or tablet with more than one camera, choose Use back camera or Use front camera to switch.
  • Turn either input off at any time. Your camera and microphone stop as soon as you do.

The device treats your camera as its back camera. It has no front camera.

If your browser blocked access, the panel says where to allow it: usually the site settings icon in the address bar. Allow the camera or microphone there, then turn it on again.

Use an image or audio file

In the same panel, choose Use image… to show a still image on the device's camera, or Play audio file… to play a WAV file into its microphone. Turn on Loop to repeat the audio.

  • Images: PNG, JPEG, or WebP, up to 8 MB. The whole image stays visible, so a QR code or barcode can be scanned.
  • Audio: PCM WAV, up to 16 MB.

A file keeps playing after you close the tab, until someone replaces or stops it, or the session ends. Live video or audio from someone's browser takes priority over a file.

From a terminal or coding agent, use ramus camera --image <file> and ramus mic --audio <file.wav>, or the MCP tools android_camera_feed and android_mic_feed. See Agents and CLI.

Who can use it

The session owner and anyone with the session's share link can use the camera and microphone. Homepage demos and CLI trial sessions cannot.

Only one person feeds live camera and mic at a time. If someone else is live, the panel shows In use by and their name to everyone else viewing the session, and Take over switches the inputs to you. Their camera and microphone stop when you take over.

Privacy

  • Anyone viewing the session sees the device's screen. If an app shows your camera, they see your camera; they do not see your preview.
  • Live video and audio pass through to the device and are never recorded or stored by Ramus. Image and audio files are kept in memory only until the session ends.
  • Ramus pauses its product-analytics session replay while your camera is on, and never includes your camera preview in a replay.
  • Apps on the device can record what they receive, like on any phone. End the session to discard the device and everything on it.

See Security for how sessions are isolated.