Mirrored or not?
The view is mirrored by default, which matches a bathroom mirror and is what you expect when checking your appearance. Raise your right hand and the reflection raises its left.
Turning mirroring off shows you as other people see you. Most people find this unsettling, because you have spent your life looking at a flipped version of your own face and your features are never perfectly symmetrical. This is also why you often dislike photographs of yourself while your friends think they look fine.
For checking a video call setup, unmirrored is the useful view. Any text behind you reads correctly and your framing matches what participants will see.
Practical uses
- Checking your appearance before joining a call, without opening the calling app.
- As a magnifier on a phone, using the rear camera to read small print.
- Checking a background before a meeting, particularly with mirroring off.
- Capturing a short clip, using the webcam recorder, which keeps the file on your device.
- Testing lighting, since the frame rate reading drops in poor light. The frame rate test turns that into an objective measure.
Your browser shows when the camera is on. If you are worried a camera is running when it should not be, how to check properly walks through it. Every current browser displays an indicator in the tab or address bar while a camera is active, and most laptops light a hardware LED next to the lens. Those signals come from the browser and the hardware, not from this page, so they are the ones to trust.
Getting a better image
Put your light source in front of you. If the image is dark or jerky, low light is almost certainly the cause. A window behind you makes the camera expose for the bright background and leaves your face dark. Raise the camera to eye level rather than looking down at it. Clean the lens: webcam lenses collect dust and fingerprints, and a wipe with a soft cloth often improves the image more than any setting.
Other checks
Common questions
Is this saved anywhere?
No. The image is drawn live from your camera to the screen and never stored. Closing the tab ends camera access immediately.
Why do I look different from a real mirror?
You do not, but a real mirror flips you and so does this by default. If you turn mirroring off you see yourself as other people do, which is unfamiliar and is why photographs of yourself often look wrong.
Can I use this on a phone?
Yes, and you can switch to the rear camera using the source list, which is useful as a magnifier for reading small print.
Why is the image grainy?
Webcams have small sensors and need much more light than the human eye. Face a window or a lamp rather than sitting with light behind you.