✔️ 1. Direct HDMI or micro-HDMI port

Some Android tablets have a micro-HDMI or even a full-size HDMI port.
→ You only need the correct cable (micro-HDMI → HDMI).

If your tablet has micro-HDMI, this is the easiest and most reliable option.

—

✔️ 2. USB-C → HDMI (DisplayPort Alt Mode)

Newer Android tablets may support DisplayPort Alt Mode, which allows video output from the USB-C port to HDMI.

You need either:

a USB-C → HDMI adapter, or

a USB-C docking station with HDMI

HOWEVER, not all USB-C ports support video output.
Support depends on the device.

—

✔️ 3. MHL / Slimport (older tablets)

Older Android tablets with micro-USB sometimes used:

MHL adapters (Mobile High-Definition Link)

Slimport adapters (less common)

These only work if the tablet specifically supports MHL/Slimport.

—

❌ 4. USB-A → HDMI cables do NOT work

Cheap USB → HDMI cables do not work unless the tablet’s USB port supports video output via Alt Mode.
They cannot “convert” the signal by themselves.

—

✔️ 5. Wireless alternatives (if HDMI is not possible)

If your tablet cannot output video at all:

Chromecast → TV: screen mirroring via the Google Home app

Miracast / Smart View (device dependent)

Not as low-latency as HDMI, but fine for movies and presentations.

—

Bonus backup:
Have a video camera that you can connect to your AV system. If everything else fails, install your camera to a suitable camera holder pointing to your tablet or smartphone screen, and show the video you get with the camera. This has worked as good backup option to be able to show the screen of devices where you can’t get video output using other methods.

The first Android is 15 years old, and it is the opposite of everything we want in a smartphone today
https://www.techradar.com/phones/the-first-android-is-15-years-old-and-it-is-the-opposite-of-everything-we-want-in-a-smartphone-today

The HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1 is fifteen years old as of September 23. This first Android phone was launched in 2008 as the Dream in Europe, then a few weeks later as the T-Mobile exclusive G1. Looking at the phone now, it’s symbolic of Android’s promise, and endemic of everything that has gone wrong since the Apple / Google duopoly of the smartphone world took hold.

It’s such a compilation of bad smartphone ideas that it’s essentially the antithesis of everything we expect from the best smartphones today.

There is a new system UI with Material You that’s expressive, dynamic, and personal. Performance improvements have been made to system services such as the WindowManager, PackageManager, system server, and interrupts. Android 12 adds support for spatial audio, and MPEG-H 3D Audio, and will support transcoding of HEVC video for backwards compatibility with apps which do not support it. OS-level machine learning functions are sandboxed within the “Android Private Compute Core”, which is expressly prohibited from accessing networks.

For more detailed technical details read:

Android 12: The Ars Technica Review
Our yearly deep dive into all the interesting stuff in Google’s latest OS.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/11/android-12-the-ars-technica-review/

Not the problem has been solved. I was tipped at USB cameras connected to Android 10 device do not work article comments that I should try to use “USB Camera” application by “ShenYao China”. That USB Camera – Connect EasyCap or USB WebCam software is available from Google Play for free. After installation my USB endoscope worked nicely on my Samsung A70 phone. At quick look the software looks promising for many applications.

“USB Camera” can let your android device connect to USB WebCam or video capture card via USB-OTG. You can record video or capture snapshot, OR turn your phone into a wireless IP Camera via build-in RTSP and HTTP Server for security monitoring WITH Bi-directional audio support, you can use your browser to view, of course, include “IP Camera” App.

Supports following devices:
1) UVC WebCam with microphone (Supports H.264, MJPG, YUY2 and so on)
2) UVC video grabber with audio input (Up to 1080p via HDMI, Supports H.264, MJPG, YUY2 and so on)
3) EasyCap including audio with UTV007 / HTV600 / HTV800 chipsets (VID_1B71&PID_3002)
4) EasyCap including audio with STK1160 + SAA7113/GM7113 + AC97 chipsets (Audio 48kHz stereo version VID_05E1&PID_0408)
5) EasyCap including audio with STK1160 + SAA7113/GM7113 (Audio 8kHz mono version VID_05E1&PID_0408)
6) EasyCap including audio with EM2860 + SAA7113/GM7113 + AC97 chipsets (VID_EB1A&PID_2861)
7) EasyCap including audio with SMI2021 + SAA7113/GM7113 + ES7240/CS5340 chipsets (VID_1C88&PID_0007, PID_003C, PID_003D, PID_003E, PID_003F, PID_1001)

While searching for information if there is a known issue I found this:

Android apps like Gmail are crashing and ‘WebView’ is to blame article tells “A number of Android users (self included) suddenly saw notifications pop up on their devices saying that apps had stopped running. Many of the apps throwing errors suddenly can’t be opened, and they include important ones like Gmail, a number of banking apps, Google Pay and others.”

The recommended first solution was
Uninstalling one Android app could get your phone working normally again.

I did not try that immediately because it seems that Google has confirmed the issue and its link to the WebView app. According to a spokesperson, “We are aware of an issue with WebView causing some apps on Android to crash. We are currently working to fully validate the scope and a fix is in progress.” According to the status message, there will be an update.

I checkedv Android system WebView info at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.webview. There was a new update available. Installing it solved the problem for me with Samsung A70.

Google Android documentation says that many standard USB cameras should generally work with Android:

The Android platform supports the use of plug-and-play USB cameras (that is, webcams) using the standard Android Camera2 API and the camera HIDL interface. Webcams generally support USB video class (UVC) drivers and on Linux, the standard Video4Linux (V4L) driver is used to control UVC cameras.

It used to work on my older Android phone nicely, but for some reason I could not get that to work with Samsung A70 that uses Android version 10. First I suspected that the problem was with my OTG cable or the old apps. First it seemed that OTG cable did not seem to work at all. Then I got newer OTG cable, that seemed to give power to those devices and it seemed that mass storage worked. But not the camera.

I tried installing some newer apps like this: OTG View is an user friendly operating Android application, which allows you to use this software to view live inspection and recording videos, take pictures and storage in your devices. It also supports playback and other functions. Connect the OTG(USB) inspection camera`s USB to Android devices to view live video. It seemed to find the camera devices nicely, but I did not be able to get any pictures or video from it. And I tried also some other apps without success. None of them seemed to get image data from camera (screen stayed black or app crashed depending on app).

So I did some research what could be reason for this. Here is what I found.

OTG View app page says:

Due to Google’s own negligence, Android 10 system can’t recognize USB camera. if you already updated to Android 10, this App will not be able to work for your phone!!! We are waiting for Google to fix this in order for us to upload a update version again.

CameraFi page says:

[Notice] Android 10 Devices Do NOT Support USB Camera Connection.
Android 10 devices do NOT support USB camera connection.
Android 10 devices do NOT support UVC(USB Video Class) devices to be connected in the apps with targetSdkVersion API Level 28 and above.

From November 2019, all app updates on Google Play have been required to target API level 28 or higher.

(source: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/02/expanding-target-api-level-requirements.html)

Therefore, for updating the app to Google Play, CameraFi Live should be API level 28 or higher.

Android 10 smartphones CANNOT connect a USB cameras like webcams, etc in the app from the Play Store.

Stackooverflow has this:

I wrote an application to access USB camera and it works fine in Android 9, but it failed in Android 10. I know that start from Android 9, application needs to grant permission from user on accessing camera as well as USB device in order to access USB camera. I found that in Android 10, application can grant permission in accessing camera, but when try to ask permission to access USB camera by UsbManager.requestPermission(), application received “deny” immediately without any prompt to ask user. Is there any other permissions I needed to ask in Android 10?

Jiusion Blog says:

Android 10 devices do NOT support USB camera connection.

Android 10 devices do NOT support UVC(USB Video Class) devices to be connected in the apps with targetSdkVersion API Level 28 and above.

From November 2019, all app updates on Google Play have been required to target API level 28 or higher.

(source: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/02/expanding-target-api-level-requirements.html)

Therefore, for updating the app to Google Play, microscope camera apps should be API level 28 or higher.

Android 10 smartphones CANNOT connect a USB cameras like webcams, etc in the app from the Play Store.

People who use the Android 10 device and broadcast live with webcams, DSLRs, camcorders, and etc., can download OTG View, USB Camera with target API Level 27

There was a download link, but I do not want to install an app from random .apk from source I can’t verify to be reasonably safe.

It seem that I have to give up the idea of using my microscope or endoscope or UVC video capture devices with my current Android smart phone. Hopefully this gets fixed some day.

With Android 11 Google is saying it is keeping focus on helping users take advantage of the latest innovations, while continuing to keep privacy and security a top priority.

Google is releasing the first Developer Preview of Android 11, now for developers only.

For developers, Android 11 promises to bring a ton of new capabilities for your apps, like enhancements for foldables and 5G, call-screening APIs, new media and camera capabilities, machine learning, and more.

https://www.androidauthority.com/intel-qualcomm-huawei-988011/

Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Xilinx have reportedly moved to stop supplying Huawei. Google has also suspended business with Huawei in the wake of the ban.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/20/several-chip-companies-including-qualcomm-and-intel-have-reportedly-stopped-supplying-huawei-after-blacklist/

According to Bloomberg, semiconductor companies Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx and Broadcom will no longer supply Huawei until further notice. Another report says that Google has suspended some trade with Huawei, leaving it with access only to the open-source version of Android.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/20/huawei-responds-android/

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3010986/heres-what-you-need-know-about-us-restrictions-huawei-and-entity-list

I am a bit worried because I am just posting with a smart phone made by Huawei.

Here are some details of those adapters.

The first suspect is  not very good types https://www.banggood.com/3_5mm-1-Male-To-2-Dual-Female-Earphone-Microphone-Splitter-Audio-Cable-Adapter-For-iphone-Samsung-p-1169141.html?p=27131452996820140438
https://www.banggood.com/3_5mm-Stereo-Audio-Male-to-Earphone-Headset-Microphone-Adapter-PC-Cell-Phone-p-1011309.html?p=27131452996820140438

The problem with those has been that 3.5 mm jacks are so close to each other that many 3.5 mm jacks do not fit in well.  Other issue is that the 3.5 mm jacks and the cable are not very durable. The connectors became loose quite quickly and cable failed on one of the unit. I also had some compatibility problems with some headsets (not detected correctly by smart phone and/or no mic sound).

Second better one is this 3.5MM 1 Male To 2 Dual Female Earphone Microphone Y Splitter Audio Cable Adapter
https://www.banggood.com/1-Male-To-2-Dual-Female-Earphone-Microphone-Y-Splitter-Audio-Cable-Adapter-p-1029049.html?p=27131452996820140438

End

It has been 10 years since Google took the wraps off the G1, the first Android phone. Since that time the OS has grown from buggy, nerdy iPhone alternative to arguably the most popular (or at least populous) computing platform in the world.

This article is a brief retrospective on the last decade of Android.