Windows Hello Modded Camera

There are plenty of people on Xianyu selling modded webcams that support Microsoft’s Windows Hello face unlock. Basically they take cameras out of laptops, hack them into USB devices, and you plug one in as an IR face-unlock camera. The cost isn’t high, but most of the shells are 3D-printed or metal shims and look a bit janky. Not a big deal unless you look closely — the main draw is that they’re cheap.

I ended up buying one for 69 yuan with free shipping, since the other sellers were asking 79 to 99 and up, sometimes without free shipping too.

Once it arrived it turned out to be pretty simple: a 3D-printed shell with a laptop pull camera inside. No cable included by default, but I found a USB cable and plugged it into the computer. Mainly meant for the PC at work, which is running the currently trendy Windows 11.

The shell comes with double-sided tape, so you can easily stick it to the top of the monitor, like this:

I’ve used it for a while, so a quick rundown:

• First, the resolution isn’t high — only 720p — so it can double as an ordinary webcam
• In theory it’s plug-and-play, but in practice it isn’t. You need to install the driver the seller provides, and if it still doesn’t work after that, you have to tweak a registry option to force Windows Hello on
• If your system is one of those “lite” builds and the default user is still Administrator, you can’t use Windows Hello at all — you have to create a new user account. Though I figure anyone willing to mess with this stuff wouldn’t be that low-brow
• Unlock speed is fast, but my work PC stays on with the screen off and never locks, so it feels kind of pointless

All in all this thing is more of a toy. Buy it to get face unlock on a desktop and the unlock works fine, but it feels pretty pointless. Maybe it’s okay to keep around as a webcam — except then I’d still need to get a microphone for the desktop…