GamingNintendoPixel owners: You can now use your phone as a Switch 2 webcamThe November Pixel Drop fixed a bug that prevented Android's two-year-old webcam mode from working with Nintendo's console.Will ShanklinContributing ReporterFri, December 5, 2025 at 8:34 PM UTCThe Switch 2's lack of a built-in camera means you need an external one for GameChat video calls.But now, if your phone is a Google Pixel, you don't even need one of those.reported on Friday that the two now work nicely together (without needing third-party apps), and our tests confirm that.Google has technically supported the use of Android devices as external webcams for two years: The company added it in a quarterly update for Android 14.
(Specifically, it added the ability for devices to use USB Video Class mode, or UVC.) But that functionality didn't work with the Switch 2 before the November Pixel Drop.How do we know it was that version? Well, before our Editor-in-Chief, Aaron Souppouris, installed November’s update on a Pixel, the Switch 2 webcam feature didn't work.After updating to that one today (but before installing the December update), it worked.If that wasn't enough, the November firmware's release notes listed a "fix for an issue where webcam mode does not work properly with connected devices under certain conditions." That pretty much cinches it.Regardless, we reached out to Google for official confirmation, and we'll update this story if we hear back.
