I want to build a feature that lets users stream video from their device camera through a Telegram bot. Is this something that can be done using Telegram’s Web Apps feature?
From what I understand, regular Telegram bots cannot directly access device hardware like cameras. However, since Telegram Web Apps run in a browser environment, I’m wondering if this opens up possibilities for camera access.
My goal is to create some kind of live streaming functionality where users can broadcast video from their phone or computer camera. Since Telegram uses its own internal browser for Web Apps, I’m not sure if the standard web APIs for camera access would work the same way.
Has anyone successfully implemented camera access in a Telegram Web App? What would be the best approach to get started with this kind of project?
Yeah, camera access works fine in Telegram Web Apps since they’re basically running in a browser with standard web APIs. I built a video chat feature last year and getUserMedia() definitely works in Telegram’s browser on most devices. The tricky part isn’t capturing video - that’s easy. It’s the streaming that gets complicated. You’ll need a media server like WebRTC or some streaming service to handle broadcasts. Telegram Web Apps can grab the camera feed but can’t broadcast directly through Telegram’s servers. Heads up though - camera permissions are weird on mobile compared to desktop. The permission flow feels clunky on phones. Also, older Android devices might have sketchy WebRTC support, so your stream quality could suffer.
I built this exact thing about six months ago. Getting camera access is easy - just use navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia(). Telegram’s WebView handles it fine. But here’s the thing - you can’t stream directly through Telegram’s servers. You’ll need your own streaming setup. I used Socket.IO for real-time stuff, though Agora or Twilio work great too. My solution captured video in the Web App, then sent it to my backend server for broadcasting. Watch out for battery drain on mobile - it’s brutal during long streams. Add quality controls or your users will hate the bandwidth usage. Oh, and iOS Safari gets weird when switching between front/rear cameras. Just a heads up.
Telegram webapps do support camera access, but the quality won’t match native apps. Since it’s not running Chrome, you’ll hit some limitations. I ran into autoplay issues and had to require user taps before starting streams. Also heads up - Telegram kills background tabs hard, so streams drop when users minimize. I’d recommend hls.js for better device compatibility.