Check My Camera

Your video is not sent to this website or to anyone else. The picture from your camera is shown in the preview and checked on your own computer. Frames are used only to find your face and measure brightness, and each one is discarded or overwritten by the next. The page does not use your microphone.

Your video and picture results are never saved. They exist only in your browser's memory while the page is open. Choosing Stop camera, closing the tab, or leaving the page turns the camera off and clears it all.

The page saves no video, audio or results. The only thing it ever stores on your computer is your settings, and only if you press Save my settings in the Settings window. They are kept in your browser's local storage on this device, not in a cookie, and are never sent anywhere. Clear saved settings in the same window removes them. The page sets no cookies, has no accounts and has no analytics.

Some things are downloaded to your browser. The first time the face detector runs, your browser downloads its program code from the jsDelivr code delivery service and its small face model file from Google's servers. These are downloads to your computer and do not include your video. As with any website, the servers that provide the page and those files can see ordinary visit details such as your internet address and browser type. The page itself is hosted on GitHub Pages.

Voice feedback uses the speech built into your browser. The words spoken are short advice messages made by this page, never your video or audio. Some browsers use online voices, and if yours does, the spoken words may be sent to the voice provider.

You can read the full source code of this page at GarthHum/video-setup-check on GitHub.

Choose the camera or padlock icon in the browser address bar, allow the camera for this site, then press Start again.

Mac: open System Settings, then Privacy and Security, then Camera, and turn on your browser.

Windows: open Settings, then Privacy and security, then Camera, and make sure access is on for apps and for your browser.

If the camera is busy, close other apps that may be using it, such as video call apps or recording software.

A small face detector runs on your computer to find your face. Centering, height and distance come from where the face sits in the picture. Distance compares the height of your face with the shorter side of the picture, so it works the same whether the picture is wide, like a laptop camera, or tall, like a phone held upright. Facing the camera compares the position of your nose with your eyes, so it measures which way your head is turned, not where your eyes are looking. Lighting compares the brightness of your face with the area behind you, so it works across skin tones. Only very dark or very bright faces are flagged on their own.

These checks are guides, not rules. If a result looks wrong for your room, trust your ears and your recording.

There are two ways to get advice on your picture. Press Check my picture now, or the C key, and the advice appears as text just below the buttons and is spoken once, and focus stays where it is. Or press Start live voice feedback, or the L key, and the page speaks each adjustment as you move, such as "Move a little to your right." If the advice has not been followed, it repeats about every twelve seconds. Stop live voice feedback turns it off again. Live voice feedback is off until you turn it on.

Describe my setup shows the summary of your picture as text and moves your screen reader onto it. Nothing is spoken by the page for this.

On an iPhone or iPad, live voice feedback is read by VoiceOver instead of the browser voice, so turn VoiceOver on to hear it. On a computer the live voice is separate from your screen reader, so with a screen reader running you will hear both. If you hear nothing, check that your volume is up.

These keys work anywhere on the page, except while the Camera list or the Settings window has focus.

• S starts or stops the camera.
• C checks your picture now. The advice appears as text and is spoken, and focus stays where it is. N does the same.
• L turns live voice feedback on or off. M does the same.
• D describes your setup as text.

If the single letters clash with your screen reader, switch off Single-letter shortcut keys in Settings. Every shortcut also works with Alt and Shift held together. On Windows press Alt plus Shift plus the letter, for example Alt plus Shift plus C. On a Mac press Option plus Shift plus the letter, for example Option plus Shift plus C. Use these if your screen reader keeps the plain letters for itself, which NVDA and JAWS do in browse mode. You can also switch to focus mode and use the plain letters. VoiceOver on a Mac passes plain letters through unless Quick Nav is on. The buttons at the top of the page always work too. Phones and tablets have no keyboard shortcuts, so use the buttons.

Current Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari on Mac and Windows. The page must be opened over https or from your own computer for the browser to allow camera access.