Mac Webcams That Just Work Connect And Chat With Family And Friends Looking to buy a driver-free, fully Macintosh compatible - USB Video Class compatible webcam? Have USB 2.0 Ports? Some older cameras made for Windows PC's may not work on Apple Macintosh computers, or Mac webcam drivers may not exist. The external webcam models listed here are simply Plug and Play on modern Macs running MacOS Mojave, Sierra, OSX El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Lion, and Leopard.

Save yourself wasted money and frustration. Make certain you have USB 2.0 speed or faster ports, OSX 10.5+, and a Mac faster than 1Ghz - then confidently choose one of these known working and Apple friendly driverless UVC webcam models listed below. Plug-N-Play Mac Webcam Picks UVC Compliant Cams For OSX Best Logitech Cameras For Mac: #1 CHOICE: Mac Compatible HD Webcam With Mini-Tripod Like: Revised C920-series optimized for high frame-rate live streaming: 1080p @ 30FPS and 720p @ 60FPS with H.264 video compression. Optical glass lens. Dual stereo microphones. For 90% of Mac users, this is your BEST CHOICE for high-quality video capture, conferencing and live streams.

Besides Amazon, you can find competitive pricing for the if you prefer. Dislike: Logitech packages two different confusing SKU's: The C922 model comes bundled with a mini-tripod, the C922X (x=without) model doesn't. #2 CHOICE: Premium Logitech C930e HD Webcam Incredible State-Of-The-Art Image Detail, Smooth Autofocus, H.264 Compression Like: Tripod Mount. 1080p HD Webcam. Zeiss Optical Lens.

Dual Microphones Dislike: High Priced. You Might Not Prefer A 90 Degree Wide-Angle View #3 CHOICE: Mac Compatible Logitech HD Webcam Excellent detail and clarity, Hardware Autofocus, H.264 Compression Like: Tripod Mounting Hole. Zeiss Glass Lens.

Stereo Microphone. Though superceded by the newer 922, this remains an excellent camera - especially at it's much lower street price. Dislike: None. Excellent All-Around Choice - Razor Sharp Like: Lower-Priced 1080p HD Webcam. Standard Camera Tripod Mount For Flexibility In Camera Angles And Placement Dislike: Considered A 'Portable' Cam - Has A Rather Short 3' Cable Best Creative Labs Cameras For Mac 720p HD Resolution Like: 720p HD Resolution, Fixed Focus, Echo Cancelling Microphone Dislike: Image Not As Sharp As Logitech 310 At This Price Point Best Microsoft Cameras For Mac Like: Premium 1080p Resolution. Excellent Audio, Color Balance and Light Sensitivity Dislike: Flexi-Bend Clip May Not Be Ideal - But Has Standard Tripod Mounting Hole Like: Autofocus.

Sharp Optical Glass Lens. Excellent Color Fidelity Dislike: No Major Drawbacks. Excellent Quality HD Camera Other 3rd Party Apple Compatible Cameras Although Logitech, Creative Labs, and Microsoft dominate the OSX friendly videoconferencing cam market, several other brand-name cameras are worthy of consideration, espcially if you're on a budget. Like: Ultimate Positioning Freedom. Clear HD Image. Internal Mic Dislike: Manual Focus. LED Lights Can Be Annoying Head-On Like: 1080p Resolution.

High-Quality Microphone Dislike: Snapshot Buttons Non-Functional On OSX. Excellent HD Cam Like: 720-1080P Resolution.

Good Light Sensitivity and Color Balance Dislike: Discontinued. Snapshot Button Non-Functional Like: Great Image! Responsive AutoFocus and Excellent Microphone Quality Dislike: Discontinued - But Still Available. Flimsy Mounting Clip Like: High HD Resolution. Stereo Mics Dislike: Lacks Precision Optics, Not As Sharp An Image About Driver-Free UVC Universal Video Class Webcams UVC is a recent compatibility standard in USB 2.0 video chat cameras. The iSight webcam built into recent iMac and MacBook models is compliant. Apple's UVC Kernel Extensions built into MacOS Mojave and Sierra, as well as OSX ElCapitan, Yosemitie, Mavericks, Lion and Leopard means any UVC based USB cam should just work when plugged into a USB 2.0 speed or faster port.

No webcam drivers are required. Windows 7/8/10 and Linux also natively support UVC class video cameras. These listed are ideal as an external webcam for an Apple Mac mini or Pro tower, and are also good Cross-Platform PC and Linux webcams for those who use VMWare Fusion, Parallels or Apple's BootCamp on their Macs to run other operating systems.

Laptops With Webcam And Microphone

Note: An increasing number of many webcam models are UVC compliant. But only the most recent are officially supported on a Mac!

The above two Pro models are absolutely UVC-Mac compatible; Many older Mid-To-Low-End Logitech cameras are NOT UVC compliant: Depends on model number, different internal sensors, and part numbers! Choose carefully.

MAC COMPATIBLE WEB CAMERA CHOICES FOR OLD MACS Like: Click Tilt Adjustment. Good Light Response & Color Balance. Standard Tripod Camera Mount Hole Dislike: Rather GRAINY Image - No Built-in Microphone Like: Sturdy Clip, Adjustable Focus Ring, On Indicator LED Dislike: Needs VERY Bright Light Levels. Off-Color Problems. Cheap Import Cam Rebranded with Logo.

Harsh, Hollow Sounding Microphone. Like: Penny-Pincher Cheap UVC cam. Good Image Sharpness Dislike: Ripoff Design.

Low Quality Microphone Like: Suprising Image Quality, Adjustable Focus Ring, Low-Cost Dislike: Stand Designed For Desktop Not Laptop. No Microphone DIRT CHEAP DRIVERLESS UVC MAC WEBCAMS 'You get what you pay for.' Seems to apply to many dirt-cheap no-name import USB video class web cameras. Feeling lucky? Don't care about warranty or returning it? Then explore for ought-to, should, might probably work on an Apple driverless web camera options from China. In our testing, many of the cheap import cameras available for $8-$14 had high dead-on-arrival failure rates.

Image quality varied widely. Some claimed to be High-Def 'HD' but were only low-resolution VGA cameras.

Microphones sounded poor or were non-functional. Even some of the cams with a decent image simply stopped working soon after purchase.

Overall they were poorly-constructed, cheap junk with a few rare exceptions. WEBCAMS FOR OBSOLETE MACS? OSX 10.2 or OSX 10.3 PANTHER? Think FireWire instead. Modern high-resolution UVC cams simply WILL NOT WORK on old 800mhz or less Macs, who's slow and incompatible USB 1.x speed ports are FOURTY TIMES slower that USB 2.0.

Those that claim to be USB 1.1 compatible in their Specification listings may have utterly abysmal frame-rates on USB 1.x or show NO image at all, even though Apple's System Profiler may recognize the camera exists on the USB 1.1 bus. Otherwise you're left dinking around with any of hundreds of old, discontinued webcams made for Windows and fiddling with Macam or IOXperts drivers hoping for a combination that will work. You CAN still find at Amazon or find a deal on an Why Apple stopped manufacturing their very high-quality 1394 FireWire auto-focus web camera is beyond logic.

1394 is better than USB for video conferencing and chat in many technical aspects: External FireWire webcam compatibility with iMovie, less CPU overhead, higher frame-rates and avoids USB device contention slugging it out on a USB hub. USB cameras aren't the only options to provide Macintosh users with high quality choices to chat and videoconference using popular Mac OSX applications like FaceTime, Yahoo Messenger, Apple Messages, Skype, and ISPQ VideoChat. Or, for capturing and uploading clips to YouTube, Vimeo or other video sites. SOUND DECISIONS: VIDEO CONFERENCING MICROPHONES Most but not all Macs have a built-in microphone. One option is a Mac compatible USB webcam with a mic which most (but not all) webcams incorporate. However, separate headsets or earbuds can help you have a far better videoconferencing or Mac Skype call experience and help minimize background noise, echo and feedback. A USB desktop microphone with great sound quality and easy to tap mute switch is a great option.

USB headsets with microphones may have more advantages than 1/8' Analog mini-jack types that often compete with your speaker system. A high-quality Mac headset comes in handy for not only Mac VOIP, video conferences and Apple dictation, but top notch iTunes audio playback and Podcast recording and listening as well. SPECIALTY WEBCAMS FOR MAC OSX Beyond conventional chat and capture, this website also features more specialized Apple compatible camera solutions. These include Document Cameras for educators and presentations, Mac compatible USB Digital Microscopes for labwork and inspections, Security Cameras, and fully-featured Voice and Video Conferencing Cameras witch mic and speakerphone hardware for business conference and huddle room environments. CHOOSING AN EXTERNAL MAC COMPATIBLE WEB CAM What are key features to look for when shopping for an Apple compatible webcam?

Monitor With Webcam And Microphone

Even though the vast majority of Apple computer systems incorporate an iSight camera into the display, there's still tremendous interest in buying an external Mac camera that offers more features, an internal microphone, higher, or additional flexibility in camera angles, mounting options, and positioning. Please see the on this site for a more in-depth review of camera features to look for when pondering the optimal hardware for your business or personal video capture and conferencing needs. Best Mac Webcams For Skype iChat Messenger FaceTime & YouTube Review and Compare the best UVC compatible Mac web cameras from Logitech, Creative Labs, RocketFish, Ipevo, Microsoft, Hercules and others. External Mac webcams tested and known to Just-Work on MacOS Mojave, Sierra, OSX El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks, Lion, Lepoard and Tiger. Great for Video Conferencing, YouTube, Skype, VOIP and QuickTime capture. Ideal for Mac mini and Macintosh Pro towers which lack a built-in iSight web camera. MAC FIREWIRE CAMERAS VOIP - VIDEO CHAT - SKYPE HEADSETS.

However, advertisers are not the only ones interested in what you are saying and doing. Hackers are also finding that the cameras and microphones on your devices can provide them with valuable information. That's why you need to know how to secure your microphone and webcam from hackers. How to secure your microphone Hacked cameras are fairly easy to spot since many have a light that turns on whenever it's in use.

But microphones are much more stealthy. It's not easy to tell when your microphone is being used. The best way to secure your gadget's microphone is to make it non-functional when you're not using it. This is a really easy process, although it will cost a few dollars to complete. Simply plug a pair of earbuds that have a microphone included in your gadget's 3.5mm audio jack. You must then cut the earbuds off, as well as the mic.

I know, I know, this sounds crazy. You've just ruined a pair of earbuds. Trust me, it's worth it.

Doing this will keep hackers from listening into your conversations. It works because plugging earbuds that have a built-in mic into your gadget changes the default audio input from the gadget's internal microphone to the external one. Even after you cut the earbuds off, the computer still uses the external mic as the default. Since the mic is no longer attached, no sound can be collected by the gadget. How to secure your webcam Webcams are great for video chatting with distant friends or watching your house while you're away on vacation. Unfortunately, they're great for hackers too.

Hackers can slip data and finance-stealing viruses onto your computer. Why not a virus that can take control of your webcam?

Even scarier, some webcams don't require any hacking! They broadcast an unsecured signal that anyone can find.

The easiest way to stop people from watching you on your webcam is to cover it with a piece of tape, or sticky-note. However, if you don't want to pin all of your hopes of privacy on a piece of tape, there are more thorough ways of disabling webcams.

Here are some ways to secure your webcam: Adjust Windows 10 setting For a simple way of securing a webcam, you can adjust settings in Windows 10. You can choose which apps are able to access the webcam or even block them all from using it. To make these changes, open Settings select Privacy select Camera.

At the top of the page, you will see the option to let apps use my camera, toggle the slider to the left to turn camera access off for all apps. Or you can give camera access to each app individually. You can allow access when you know you are going to use the app and turn access off when you're not using it. Webcam protection software It's difficult to know when you are secretly being watched. You need to protect yourself from hackers that want to snoop on your every move.

One way to stay protected is with security software. A webcam protector is an option from that helps keep spy software from your computer. It is designed to protect your vulnerable audio and video ports. Most antivirus companies offer this type of webcam protection. Go to the website of your antivirus company and do a search for webcam protection to find out what is available.

Disable your webcam Whether you are using a Mac, Windows laptop, or a touch-screen all-in-one desktop PC, it more than likely came with an integrated, or built-in, webcam. Disabling these webcams is a pretty simple process. Bonus tip: For an in-depth look at how hackers are watching your every move, listen to our podcast.