# Camera Buoy Desktop supplies a camera feed to Flutter apps in the iOS Simulator. Choose a source on your Mac, then relaunch the app process so the camera integration loads. **iOS Simulator only.** Android emulators can already use a webcam natively, and this is not a physical-device tool. ## Use it Buoy Desktop → **Camera** → click a source. Then run your app however you like — `flutter run`, from your IDE, or a build someone handed you. Sources: **Mac camera**, **Screen region**, **Barcode**, **Image**, **Video**, **Test pattern**. There is no package for this one. Nothing goes into your `pubspec.yaml`, nothing wraps your widget tree, and `buoy_core` is not required — it works on any booted simulator app, including apps that have never heard of Buoy. The camera attaches at process start, so restart anything already running — hot reload and hot restart won't do it, because the library is loaded by the process before Dart runs. Switching source afterwards is live. Camera permission is pre-granted, so your app never prompts. ## Screen region A resizable box on your desktop is the camera. Put it over a QR code, a licence or a document and your app scans what's inside it. Drag to move, pull a handle to resize, **Esc** to put it away. Resizing snaps to **16:9** — the only shape the camera has, so anything else gets black bars; hold **Shift** to override. **Click-through** lets clicks land underneath, so you can scroll the page you're filming. Needs Screen Recording permission — without it the feed is black. ## Barcodes QR, PDF417, Aztec, DataMatrix, EAN-8/13, UPC-E, Code 128/39/93, ITF. Detection runs on your Mac, not in the simulator, and the results are handed to the app through the same metadata API a real camera uses — so a scanner reading `AVCaptureMetadataOutput` gets them without knowing anything happened. The **Barcode** source generates a code from text you type, which is how you test a licence scanner without owning a licence. ## What works The devices are fabricated at the AVFoundation level, below anything Dart can see, so compatibility depends on how the camera plugin uses AVFoundation. Verified with Flutter's [`camera`](https://pub.dev/packages/camera) plugin: preview, the frame stream, photo capture, and video recording. Plugins that go through `AVCaptureSession` should work the same way. That is an expectation, not a test result: only the `camera` plugin has actually been run. ## Desktop & AI This tool lives in [Buoy Desktop](../../desktop); there is no in-app half to it. And with the [MCP server](../../mcp), an agent can run a camera test end to end through its supported actions: find a simulator and its apps (`camera_devices`), see the Mac's cameras and windows (`camera_inputs`), pick what to show (`camera_source`), attach it (`camera_launch`, or `camera_zero_setup` for everything the simulator launches), then check its own work (`camera_status`, `camera_diagnose`) and clean up (`camera_stop`). No app-side Buoy package or device connection is required. Camera MCP tools require Pro. QR generation is free; Screen region and additional barcode types require Pro. See [Camera](../../tools/camera) for the shared plan and source details. ## Limits - macOS + Xcode + Buoy Desktop. Screen sources need macOS 12.3+. - Simulator only, not devices. Android emulators do webcams natively. - No recording through `AVCaptureMovieFileOutput` — the `camera` plugin's own video recording works, but that specific output class does not. - Front and back cameras are the same feed. - No GS1 DataBar or Micro symbologies. - One injection owner at a time — quit other simulator-camera tools. --- ## What's Next - [Images](./images) — Every image load, with cache verdicts and an oversize audit - [Network Monitor](./network) — The requests your capture screen makes afterwards - [Buoy Desktop](../../desktop) — Where this tool lives --- ## FAQ ### Do I need a Buoy package for this? No. It is the one Buoy tool with nothing to install in the app — no `pubspec.yaml` entry, no `BuoyDevTools` wrapper, not even `buoy_core`. Buoy Desktop loads a small library into the simulator at launch and publishes frames to it, so any booted simulator app gets a camera. ### Why does my Flutter app still say there's no camera? The library is inserted when the process starts, so an app that was already running when you turned the camera on never got it. Restart the app — hot reload and hot restart both keep the same process, so neither is enough. ### Can I scan a QR code without printing one? Yes, two ways. The **Barcode** source generates one from text you type. The **Screen region** source points the camera at a rectangle of your own desktop, so you can scan a code on a web page, in a PDF, or in a design file. ### Does this work on Android emulators? It is not needed there — Android emulators can use a webcam as the camera natively. This tool exists because the iOS Simulator ships no camera at all.