Test the camera on your iPhone

On an iPhone the camera permission lives in the Settings app, separately for each browser, rather than anywhere on the page.

1. 1For Safari: Settings → Safari → Camera, set to Ask or Allow. For Chrome: Settings → Chrome → Camera.
2. 2Return to this page and reload. The prompt only reappears after a reload, which is why changing the setting alone looks like nothing happened.
3. 3If you are in a private browsing tab, try an ordinary one — permissions behave differently there.

An iPhone always has cameras, so this nearly always means the browser was never allowed to enumerate them rather than that none exist.

1. 1Grant camera access in Settings for the browser you are using, then reload the page.
2. 2Close anything else that may hold the camera — the Camera app, FaceTime, or a meeting app left running in the background.
3. 3Restart the phone if the picker is still empty after both.

iOS is stricter than a desktop about one app at a time, and the holder is almost always something you left open rather than something hidden.

1. 1Swipe up and close the Camera app, FaceTime and any meeting app from the app switcher.
2. 2Close other browser tabs that have asked for the camera.
3. 3Reload this page.

On a phone this is framing and light far more often than hardware, because the sensor is small and the angle is usually wrong.

1. 1Switch to the rear camera in the picker. It has a bigger sensor and handles low light considerably better than the front one.
2. 2Face a window rather than sitting in front of one. Phone sensors clip highlights fast, so a window behind you turns your face into a silhouette.
3. 3If the frame rate is unexpectedly low, check whether Low Power Mode is on and whether the phone is warm. Both make iOS throttle camera capture.