Webcam Test

What the webcam test measures

The test opens your camera in the browser and shows two different things: what the camera is sending right now, and what its driver says it can do. A camera that reports 1920 × 1080 often sends 640 × 480 until a site asks for more, which is why video calls can look worse than the camera's box promises.

How the verdict is made

Two and a half seconds after the picture starts, the test checks three things and gives one verdict:

• No picture is arriving — the video has no size, or fewer than 0.5 frames a second arrive.
• The picture is black — the average brightness of a 32 × 18 thumbnail is below 10 out of 255. A closed privacy shutter, a camera key on the keyboard or a dark room do this.
• Works, but choppy — fewer than 15 frames a second arrive. Many webcams lengthen the exposure in poor light and drop frames to do it, so more light is the first fix.
• Your camera works — everything else, with the resolution and measured frame rate.

"Ask for" requests 720p, 1080p or 4K as an ideal, not a demand: the browser picks the nearest size the camera supports, and the panel shows what you actually got. With Chromium's built-in test camera, a page that asks for nothing receives 640 × 480 at 20 frames a second, and asking for 1080p returns 1920 × 1080 (our measurement, 2 October 2026).

When the camera does not start

The test translates the browser's error into a cause and a fix: NotAllowedError (blocked for the site or by the system), NotFoundError (no camera), NotReadableError or AbortError (another app such as Zoom, Teams or OBS is holding it, or the driver failed), OverconstrainedError (the selected camera disappeared — the test falls back to the default one) and SecurityError (no https, or an embedding site that did not allow the camera). The names are the getUserMedia() exceptions documented in MDN Web Docs.

Limits

The test sees what the browser delivers after the camera's own processing — auto exposure, background blur from the system, or a virtual camera from another app. Some browsers do not report capabilities or facing mode; the panel then says "Not reported" rather than guessing. Nothing is recorded or uploaded, and the test photo is created on your device.