Is there some kind of webcam shortage?

[supernintendo128]

I needed a new webcam (the one I have is ass) and I looked online and nothing's being sold at market price. All of the webcams I'm seeing are priced at $200+. Is it because of people working/doing class from home?

 

[Joe88]

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/03/23/you-can-still-buy-a-webcam-from-logitech-directly/

Pretty much, businesses are buying them up to work from home, schools/students and getting them for remote learning, C920 and C930E are still in stock.
Unless you want to try the off brand ones.

 

[FAST6191]

See if you can find a playstation eye. Camera is not the absolute best but perfectly serviceable (it needed to be good to play games) and the audio is great (has 4 mics built in and they work well).

Equally if you get creative with software, or your required software is not awful and supports multiple ways of getting video, then some regular cameras can be used to do it and they will be as good as you need.

 

[subcon959]

It seems like there is a shortage of a lot of things.

Is there no solution to hook up a phone and use it as a webcam?

 

[Lostbhoy]

C920 may not be in stock for long, im currently installing them for the NHS all over Scotland!

 

[FAST6191]

It seems like there is a shortage of a lot of things.

Is there no solution to hook up a phone and use it as a webcam?

Appearing as a camera via simple USB was probably a thing that vanished when we stopped getting phones with removable batteries and SD card slots. Even on big boy cameras it tends to be more the biggest of big boy (as in if it does not have a lens you can take off...) these days, old school ones were a bit different.

There are network based tools for it so you both connect to the same LAN/"virtual router" and hope firewall rules where you are at don't get in the way (modern Windows can be quite annoying). https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pas.webcam is one such example but I don't know what the current hotness might be.