RealBridge was designed to make online bridge seem more like face-to-face bridge… or real bridge. It includes the use of video and audio so you can see, hear and speak with your partner and opponents. While you can still play RealBridge without a webcam, it’s just not the same experience. You’ll be able to see and hear the other players but they won’t be able to see and hear you.
Stores like Officeworks and JB Hi-Fi sell very good webcams for under $100. These are usually plug-and-play, which means when you plug your new webcam into your computer, Windows will detect the webcam and get your computer ready to use it. Normally this takes just a few minutes.
Another simple option is to turn your smart-phone (Android or iPhone) into a webcam. Here’s how you can do that.
STEP 1 – INSTALL THE DROIDCAM APP ON YOUR SMART PHONE
ANDROID PHONES – Search for DroidCamX in the GooglePlay store on your phone. There is a one-off cost of $AUD 5.99 to purchase this app.
The Android app looks like this:
APPLE iPHONES – Search for DroidCam in the App Store on your iPhone. There is a free version but that has a limited trial life. The one-off cost to buy the full version is $AUD 9.99.
The iOS app looks like this:
STEP 2 – INSTALL DROIDCAM SOFTWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER
Once you’ve installed the app on your phone, go to this site via your computer (not your phone) – https://www.dev47apps.com/droidcam/windows/.
Click on the blue Download Windows Client button. That downloads a small installation file to your computer’s Downloads folder. Go to your computer’s Downloads folder and click (or double click on it) to install the DroidCam software.
Once that’s done, connect your phone to your computer by following the steps here – https://www.dev47apps.com/droidcam/connect/
You would normally select the first option, Connect via Wi-Fi.
Finally, go to this page https://play.realbridge.online/camera.html on the RealBridge site to check that your new smart phone webcam will work on the RealBridge site.