I thought I should check whether my phone (Galaxy A52 5g) supports "shutter
release" (camera trigger) via Bluetooth. But there seems to be no mention
of it in the phone's inbuilt help files.

So I asked in a Samsung support chat session. The assistant didn't seem
to recognise what I was talking about. The she found some random no-name
selfie stick on uBay USA, sort-of pretending that this was Samsung's
retail partner. The she suggested I search on Amazon...

So either my phone doesn't support it, or support is so ubiquitous that
it doesn't even warrant a mention.

I'm thinking it's likely to be the latter, as I can't imagine a camera
phone that doesn't work on a selfie stick with a Bluetooth button.

Anyone know?

David

David Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> wrote:

> I thought I should check whether my phone (Galaxy A52 5g) supports "shutter
> release" (camera trigger) via Bluetooth. But there seems to be no mention
> of it in the phone's inbuilt help files.
>
> So I asked in a Samsung support chat session. The assistant didn't seem
> to recognise what I was talking about. The she found some random no-name
> selfie stick on uBay USA, sort-of pretending that this was Samsung's
> retail partner. The she suggested I search on Amazon...
>
> So either my phone doesn't support it, or support is so ubiquitous that
> it doesn't even warrant a mention.
>
> I'm thinking it's likely to be the latter, as I can't imagine a camera
> phone that doesn't work on a selfie stick with a Bluetooth button.
>
> Anyone know?
>
> David

Pair the BT selfie stick or remote fob to you phone. You should see the
shutter device in the list of BT paired devices on your phone.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cast4tv.bluetooth.remote.shutter&hl=en_US&gl=US
Does any phone support Bluetooth Remote Shutter app?
No. Many device manufacturers have disabled the Bluetooth HID device
profile on their devices. YOu would have to ask your device
manufacturers to enable it.

Points to another app that tests your phone to see if the HID profile is
enabled on your phone to allow remote shutter control of the phone's
camera. The suggested app is at:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rdapps.bluetoothhidtester

I can't this app doesn't anything other than to test if BT is enabled on
your phone, or not. The screenshots don't list which HID profiles are
defined. Just because HID profiles are enabled doesn't mean you have a
HID profile for a particular device.

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/bluetooth/profiles

That mentions only a few HID profiles of which none discuss camera
shutter control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles

That mentions the Basic Imaging Profile (BIP) which supports the remote
camera function. But there isn't a list of which phones have it.

VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
> Pair the BT selfie stick or remote fob to you phone. You should see the
> shutter device in the list of BT paired devices on your phone.
>
> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cast4tv.bluetooth.remote.shutter&hl=en_US&gl=US
> Does any phone support Bluetooth Remote Shutter app?
> No. Many device manufacturers have disabled the Bluetooth HID device
> profile on their devices. YOu would have to ask your device
> manufacturers to enable it.

Supposedly (and this is old), the selfie sticks are just being a Bluetooth
keyboard with two buttons: 'volume up' for iOS and 'Enter' for Android.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26741854/how-does-a-remote-shutter-for-camera-work-on-android-ios

This is more recent and suggests Android 10 supports 'volume up':
https://github.com/T-vK/ESP32-BLE-Keyboard/issues/39

I just tried the physical volume up button (Pixel 4a, Android 13, Google
Camera app) and that worked as the shutter trigger.

So I'd guess the sticks don't need any integrated support. You could test
it with a Bluetooth keyboard with volume buttons - if that works then I'd
guess a selfie stick would too.

Theo

In message <KTq*Ntwbz@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

> Supposedly (and this is old), the selfie sticks are just being a Bluetooth
> keyboard with two buttons: 'volume up' for iOS and 'Enter' for Android.
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26741854/how-does-a-remote-shutter-for-camera-work-on-android-ios
>
> This is more recent and suggests Android 10 supports 'volume up':
> https://github.com/T-vK/ESP32-BLE-Keyboard/issues/39
>
> I just tried the physical volume up button (Pixel 4a, Android 13, Google
> Camera app) and that worked as the shutter trigger.
>
> So I'd guess the sticks don't need any integrated support. You could test
> it with a Bluetooth keyboard with volume buttons - if that works then I'd
> guess a selfie stick would too.

Ah - thanks, Theo, I just tried it and it works!

What a bodge. Anything to avoid doing it properly. But, I suppose,
if it's ubiquitous, it's all we need.

David

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

> VanguardLH <V@nguard.lh> wrote:
>
>> Pair the BT selfie stick or remote fob to you phone. You should see
>> the shutter device in the list of BT paired devices on your phone.
>>
>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cast4tv.bluetooth.remote.shutter&hl=en_US&gl=US
>> Does any phone support Bluetooth Remote Shutter app?
>> No. Many device manufacturers have disabled the Bluetooth HID device
>> profile on their devices. YOu would have to ask your device
>> manufacturers to enable it.
>
> Supposedly (and this is old), the selfie sticks are just being a
> Bluetooth keyboard with two buttons: 'volume up' for iOS and 'Enter'
> for Android.
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26741854/how-does-a-remote-shutter-for-camera-work-on-android-ios
>
> This is more recent and suggests Android 10 supports 'volume up':
> https://github.com/T-vK/ESP32-BLE-Keyboard/issues/39
>
> I just tried the physical volume up button (Pixel 4a, Android 13,
> Google Camera app) and that worked as the shutter trigger.
>
> So I'd guess the sticks don't need any integrated support. You could
> test it with a Bluetooth keyboard with volume buttons - if that works
> then I'd guess a selfie stick would too.

That could be true. Of the BT HID profiles that I found info about,
most were about a BT [remote] keyboard. I was thinking there needed to
be a HID profile for a selfie stick, but never found info on such a HID.

I just tried the VolumeUp trick on my old LG V20 phone (released 2016,
discontinued 2019, still back on Android 8.0.0 with no possibility of OS
updates since the phone was discontinued and LG left the smartphone
market). The camera app doesn't let me show a virtual keyboard, and I
wasn't going to waste time trying to show one, because the VolumeUp
trick worked. That was to take a pic.

However, it didn't work to pause/unpause a video recording. Might be a
limitation of the bundled camera app that came on the phone.

The articles did mention BT HID is not available or enabled on all
phones, and you would need the phone maker to add it (or root your phone
and figure out how to enable BT HID profiles). So, the feature is
"ubiquitous" to phones where BT HID profiles are available and enabled.