Taking pictures/videos from both front and rear camera simultaneously?


Question

There are apps that can do this but they are not exactly Bothie. The app allows the user to first take a picture from rear camera and then from the front camera (but not simultaneously). Nokia first came up with this idea in 2017.

More about Bothie


I am just wondering if this is a hardware feature or software. I can handle the software issue(with root) i think. And if this is not possible then can you please explain why and how it works (totally optional)?
Because if this is possible then people will be able to take videos from both cameras (poor cameraman will also be included in the clip).. and that would be pretty cool IMO =)


Every little opinion or googling is accepted. Thanks in advance : )


Answer

This is what I could gather from answers on Stack Overflow. I have no development background, so corrections are welcome.



  • Camera could have only have one object as mentioned here. But this was depreciated from Android 5.0. So, devices running KitKat and below, cannot have this feature.



  • It seemed to be possible on some devices to open both front and rear camera as mentioned here. However, it is not possible on all devices due to hardware & Software restrictions (see comments)





The Android camera APIs generally allow multiple cameras to be used at the same time, but most devices do not have enough hardware resources to support that in practice - for example, there's often only one camera image processor shared by both cameras.




  • The link in your question is the best I could find for a clear explanation.Nokia, Samsung, LG seem to have started this trend on some of their devices. Such devices either need Dual Camera Mode or Dual Sight Mode. There wasn't much I could find about these OEM specific technologies. The Frontback Camera app mentioned in the link, works on Pixel 4a Android 11. Note that the pictures were very grainy and not worth the result IMO.


OP tried apps mentioned here and they didn't work.


This leads me to conclude that it is both a hardware & Software feature and apps can be poor substitute. I doubt if trying on other devices would show better results. Neither have I come across any rooted or Xposed modules that can do this, so it is best to buy the devices that support this natively, if you want this feature badly.


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