Camera & Mic Test

What it's for

Check that your camera and microphone work, and what they give you, before a video call or a recording. You see the picture with its size in pixels and how many frames a second it really delivers, a meter shows how loud the microphone is, and you can record five seconds of your own voice and hear it back.

For example, when a call starts in ten minutes and the other side said you sounded faint, pick your headset’s microphone, speak normally and see whether the meter reaches the upper part of the bar.

How to use it

Choose a Camera and a Microphone (or No camera / No microphone to test just one) and press Start. The browser asks to use them. The names of every device appear in the menus once you have allowed access, so choose another and press Start again to switch.

The line under the picture gives its size and the measured frames a second. The meter and the line below it give the microphone’s level in dBFS (decibels below the loudest level the microphone can send, so 0 is the loudest and −20 is a comfortable speaking level), with the highest level so far. Record 5 seconds and play back records the microphone and plays the result. Stop releases both devices; closing the page does too.

Example

Leave both menus on their defaults, press Start, allow access, then say “testing, one two three” at your normal volume. The meter moves with your voice and the line below it shows something like −25 dBFS with a higher figure beside “highest”. Press Record 5 seconds and play back and listen.

Good to know

The picture and sound are shown and played on this page only: nothing is saved, uploaded or kept after you press Stop, except the five-second clip, which you can play until you leave. The browser’s own indicator shows that the camera is on. The frame rate is counted from the frames the browser shows, so it can read lower than the camera’s best on a slow computer or a dim room. The meter is relative, not a calibrated measure, and the page turns off the browser’s echo cancelling, noise reduction and automatic gain so you hear the microphone as it is; call programs may add them back. Playing the clip through speakers can feed back into the microphone: use headphones. Some browsers don’t offer the frame counter and fall back to the camera’s stated rate.