How to get front camera, back camera and audio with AVCaptureDeviceDiscoverySession

Question

Before iOS 10 came out I was using the following code to get the video and audio capture for my video recorder:

 for device in AVCaptureDevice.devices()
 {
          


        

Answer 1

For my video capture app I'm using the following code to get the mic, front and rear camera and I've tested this code from iOS 7 to 10.0.2.

        var frontCamera : AVCaptureDevice?
        var rearCamera : AVCaptureDevice?

        captureSession = AVCaptureSession()

        let devices = AVCaptureDevice.devicesWithMediaType(AVMediaTypeVideo)

        let audioDevices = AVCaptureDevice.devicesWithMediaType(AVMediaTypeAudio)

        for mic in audioDevices {
            audioDevice = mic as? AVCaptureDevice
            audioCapturePossible = true
        }

        for device in devices {
            if device.position == AVCaptureDevicePosition.Front {
                frontCamera = device as? AVCaptureDevice
                hasFrontCamera = true
            }
            else if device.position == AVCaptureDevicePosition.Back {
                rearCamera = device as? AVCaptureDevice
                hasRearCamera = true
            }

        }

Answer 2

Swift 4 (xCode 10.1)

This is what worked for me in the latest version of Swift. I did not see this answer, and it took me a while to suss out so here is how to get the front facing camera.

 if let device = AVCaptureDevice.defaultDevice(withDeviceType: .builtInWideAngleCamera , mediaType: AVMediaTypeVideo, position: .front)  {
    //Do the camera thing here..
}

Answer 3

Here's my code (Swift 3) to get camera position :

// Find a camera with the specified AVCaptureDevicePosition, returning nil if one is not found
func cameraWithPosition(_ position: AVCaptureDevicePosition) -> AVCaptureDevice?
{
    if let deviceDescoverySession = AVCaptureDeviceDiscoverySession.init(deviceTypes: [AVCaptureDeviceType.builtInWideAngleCamera],
                                                          mediaType: AVMediaTypeVideo,
                                                          position: AVCaptureDevicePosition.unspecified) {

        for device in deviceDescoverySession.devices {
            if device.position == position {
                return device
            }
        }
    }

    return nil
}

If you want, you can also get the new devicesTypes from iPhone 7+ (dual camera) by changing the deviceTypes array.

Here's a good read : https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/63347

Answer 4

It works on Xcode 9.2 and Swift 4

AVCaptureDevice.default(.builtInWideAngleCamera, for: AVMediaType.video, position: .back)

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcapturedevice/2361508-default

Answer 5

Swift 3

For selecting the back camera:(also you can change .back as needed)

For selecting another deviceType simple add it inside the [ ] (i.e:

[deviceTypeCamera, AVCaptureDeviceType.builtInMicrophone]

(or create a private let... like I did in the code with the back camera)

 private let position = AVCaptureDevicePosition.back
 private let deviceTypeBackCamera = AVCaptureDeviceType.builtInWideAngleCamera

 private func selectCaptureDevice() -> AVCaptureDevice? {
    return AVCaptureDeviceDiscoverySession(deviceTypes: [deviceTypeBackCamera], mediaType: AVMediaTypeVideo, position: position).devices.first

 }

Answer 6

Try below code to get camera ID:

NSString *cameraID = nil;

NSArray *captureDeviceType = @[AVCaptureDeviceTypeBuiltInWideAngleCamera];
AVCaptureDeviceDiscoverySession *captureDevice = 
              [AVCaptureDeviceDiscoverySession 
                discoverySessionWithDeviceTypes:captureDeviceType 
                mediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo 
                position:AVCaptureDevicePositionUnspecified];

cameraID = [captureDevice.devices.lastObject localizedName];