Geerling owns an older model Dell XPS laptop where the camera array is placed at the bottom of the display, which means that you need to rethink your angle of attack to avoid onlookers examining your nose hair during video chats. Not ideal, and something Dell has fixed in newer models.

Rather than requiring a web utility app, often in beta form, the Zero W solution behaves like a standard USB webcam and can be used with the Windows 10 Camera application. While there are plenty of resources online that detail the process of getting OTG webcams to work, most require users to dive under the coding hood.

Geerling wanted to automate the solution for non-coders, so compiled everything needed into an Ansible playbook so that the Pi webcam can run on Mac, Windows and Linux computers. The setup has even been tested with the new Pi 400 and is reported to work well.