teslamotors/react-native-camera-kit

README

🎈 React Native Camera Kit

A high performance, easy to use, rock solid
camera library for React Native apps.

Cross Platform (iOS and Android)
Optimized for performance and high photo capture rate
QR / Barcode scanning support
Face detection support
Camera preview support in iOS simulator

Installation (RN > 0.60)

yarn add react-native-camera-kit

cd ios && pod install && cd ..

Android: Review your Kotlin configuration to ensure it's compatible with this library.

Permissions

You must use a separate library for prompting the user for permissions before rendering the <Camera .../> component.
We recommend zoontek's library, react-native-permissions: https://github.com/zoontek/react-native-permissions#ios-flow

If you fail to prompt for permission, the camera will appear blank / black.

Why no permissions API?

Conceptually, permissions are simple: Granted / Denied.
However, in reality it's not that simple due to privacy enhancements on iOS and Android.

Here's an example diagram from react-native-permissions's README, which illustrates the complexity of the user-experience, which we don't want to duplicate in a camera library:

   ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
   ┃ check(PERMISSIONS.IOS.CAMERA) ┃
   ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
                   │
       Is the feature available
           on this device ?
                   │           ╔════╗
                   ├───────────║ NO ║──────────────┐
                   │           ╚════╝              │
                ╔═════╗                            ▼
                ║ YES ║                 ┌─────────────────────┐
                ╚═════╝                 │ RESULTS.UNAVAILABLE │
                   │                    └─────────────────────┘
           Is the permission
             requestable ?
                   │           ╔════╗
                   ├───────────║ NO ║──────────────┐
                   │           ╚════╝              │
                ╔═════╗                            ▼
                ║ YES ║                  ┌───────────────────┐
                ╚═════╝                  │ RESULTS.BLOCKED / │
                   │                     │ RESULTS.LIMITED / │
                   │                     │  RESULTS.GRANTED  │
                   ▼                     └───────────────────┘
          ┌────────────────┐
          │ RESULTS.DENIED │
          └────────────────┘
                   │
                   ▼
  ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
  ┃ request(PERMISSIONS.IOS.CAMERA) ┃
  ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
                   │
         Does the user accept
            the request ?
                   │           ╔════╗
                   ├───────────║ NO ║──────────────┐
                   │           ╚════╝              │
                ╔═════╗                            ▼
                ║ YES ║                   ┌─────────────────┐
                ╚═════╝                   │ RESULTS.BLOCKED │
                   │                      └─────────────────┘
                   ▼
          ┌─────────────────┐
          │ RESULTS.GRANTED │
          └─────────────────┘

In earlier versions of react-native-camera-kit, permissions were provided with an API, but for the above reasons, these APIs will be removed.

Android

Add the following uses-permission to your AndroidManifest.xml (usually found at: android/src/main/)

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/>

iOS

Add the following usage descriptions to your Info.plist (usually found at: ios/PROJECT_NAME/)

<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
<string>For taking photos</string>

<key>NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription</key>
<string>For saving photos</string>

Running the example project

yarn bootstrap
yarn example ios or yarn example android

Components

Camera

Barebones camera component if you need advanced/customized interface

import { Camera, CameraType } from 'react-native-camera-kit';

<Camera
  ref={(ref) => (this.camera = ref)}
  cameraType={CameraType.Back} // front/back(default)
  flashMode="auto"
/>

Barcode / QR Code Scanning

Additionally, the Camera can be used for barcode scanning

<Camera
  ...
  // Barcode props
  scanBarcode={true}
  onReadCode={(event) => Alert.alert('QR code found')} // optional
  showFrame={true} // (default false) optional, show frame with transparent layer (qr code or barcode will be read on this area ONLY), start animation for scanner, that stops when a code has been found. Frame always at center of the screen
  laserColor='red' // (default red) optional, color of laser in scanner frame
  frameColor='white' // (default white) optional, color of border of scanner frame
/>

Face Detection

Detect faces in real time. iOS uses Apple Vision; Android uses Google ML Kit.

Android requires a Google Play Store device

<Camera
  ...
  faceDetectionEnabled={true}
  faceDetectionThrottleMs={100} // optional, default 100ms
  onFaceDetected={(event) => {
    // event.nativeEvent.faces: FaceData[]
    // each face: { id, yaw, pitch, roll, boundsX, boundsY, boundsWidth, boundsHeight }
  }}
  // Android only — track MLKit face module download progress
  onFaceDetectionInstallStatus={(event) => {
    // event.nativeEvent.state: FaceDetectionInstallState
    // 'pending' | 'downloading' | 'installing' | 'ready' | 'failed' | 'unavailable'
  }}
/>

Android: pre-download the ML Kit model

This library depends on the unbundled play-services-mlkit-face-detection variant — the model is downloaded by Google Play Services rather than bundled in the APK. By default the download happens on first use, and onFaceDetectionInstallStatus reports the progress.

To have Play Services pre-download the model in the background after the app is installed, add this to your app's AndroidManifest.xml:

<application ...>
  <meta-data
      android:name="com.google.mlkit.vision.DEPENDENCIES"
      android:value="face" />
</application>

Note: Requires Google Play Services on the device. On devices without Google Play Services, onFaceDetectionInstallStatus fires once with 'unavailable'.

Camera Props (Optional)

Props	Type	Description
`ref`	Ref	Reference on the camera view
`style`	StyleProp<ViewStyle>	Style to apply on the camera view
`flashMode`	`'on'`/`'off'`/`'auto'`	Camera flash mode. Default: `auto`
`focusMode`	`'on'`/`'off'`	Camera focus mode. Default: `on`
`zoomMode`	`'on'`/`'off'`	Enable the pinch to zoom gesture. Default: `on`. If `on`, you must pass `zoom` as `undefined` or avoid setting `zoomMode` to allow pinch to zoom
`zoom`	`number`	Control the zoom. Default: `1.0`
`maxZoom`	`number`	Maximum zoom allowed (but not beyond what camera allows). Default: `undefined` (camera default max)
`onZoom`	Function	Callback when user makes a pinch gesture, regardless of what the `zoom` prop was set to. Returned event contains `zoom`. Ex: `onZoom={(e) => console.log(e.nativeEvent.zoom)}`.
`torchMode`	`'on'`/`'off'`	Toggle flash light when camera is active. Default: `off`
`cameraType`	CameraType.Back/CameraType.Front	Choose what camera to use. Default: `CameraType.Back`
`onOrientationChange`	Function	Callback when physical device orientation changes. Returned event contains `orientation`. Ex: `onOrientationChange={(event) => console.log(event.nativeEvent.orientation)}`. Use `import { Orientation } from 'react-native-camera-kit'; if (event.nativeEvent.orientation === Orientation.PORTRAIT) { ... }` to understand the new value
`allowedBarcodeTypes`	string[]	Limits which barcode formats can be detected. Ex: `['code-128', 'code-39', 'code-93', 'codabar', 'ean-13', 'ean-8', 'itf', 'upc-a', 'upc-e', 'pdf-417', 'aztec', 'data-matrix', 'code-128']`. If empty or omitted, all supported formats are scanned.
Android only
`onError`	Function	Android only. Callback when camera fails to initialize. Ex: `onError={(e) => console.log(e.nativeEvent.errorMessage)}`.
`shutterPhotoSound`	`boolean`	Android only. Enable or disable the shutter sound when capturing a photo. Default: `true`
iOS only
`ratioOverlay`	`'int:int'`	Show a guiding overlay in the camera preview for the selected ratio. Does not crop image as of v9.0. Example: `'16:9'`
`ratioOverlayColor`	Color	Any color with alpha. Default: `'#ffffff77'`
`resetFocusTimeout`	`number`	Dismiss tap to focus after this many milliseconds. Default `0` (disabled). Example: `5000` is 5 seconds.
`resetFocusWhenMotionDetected`	Boolean	Dismiss tap to focus when focus area content changes. Native iOS feature, see documentation: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcapturedevice/1624644-subjectareachangemonitoringenabl?language=objc). Default `true`.
`resizeMode`	`'cover' / 'contain'`	Determines the scaling and cropping behavior of content within the view. `cover` (resizeAspectFill on iOS) scales the content to fill the view completely, potentially cropping content if its aspect ratio differs from the view. `contain` (resizeAspect on iOS) scales the content to fit within the view's bounds without cropping, ensuring all content is visible but may introduce letterboxing. Default behavior depends on the specific use case.
`scanThrottleDelay`	`number`	Duration between scan detection in milliseconds. Default 2000 (2s)
`maxPhotoQualityPrioritization`	`'balanced'` / `'quality'` / `'speed'`	iOS 13 and newer. `'speed'` provides a 60-80% median capture time reduction vs 'quality' setting. Tested on iPhone 6S Max (66% faster) and iPhone 15 Pro Max (76% faster!). Default `balanced`
`iOsDeferredStart`	`boolean`	iOS 26+ only. Enables `AVCaptureOutput.deferredStartEnabled` when supported to get the preview visible faster. Default `true`. When enabled, the first capture can be delayed by a few hundred milliseconds. Ignored on Android and on older iOS versions.
`onCaptureButtonPressIn`	Function	Callback when iPhone capture button is pressed in or Android volume or camera button is pressed in. Ex: `onCaptureButtonPressIn={() => console.log("volume button pressed in")}`
`onCaptureButtonPressOut`	Function	Callback when iPhone capture button is released or Android volume or camera button is released. Ex: `onCaptureButtonPressOut={() => console.log("volume button released")}`
Barcode only
`scanBarcode`	`boolean`	Enable barcode scanner. Default: `false`
`showFrame`	`boolean`	Show frame in barcode scanner. Default: `false`
`barcodeFrameSize`	`object`	Frame size of barcode scanner. Default: `{ width: 300, height: 150 }`
`laserColor`	Color	Color of barcode scanner laser visualization. Default: `red`
`frameColor`	Color	Color of barcode scanner frame visualization. Default: `yellow`
`onReadCode`	Function	Callback when scanner successfully reads barcode. Returned event contains `codeStringValue`. Default: `null`. Ex: `onReadCode={(event) => console.log(event.nativeEvent.codeStringValue)}`
Face detection
`faceDetectionEnabled`	`boolean`	Enable real-time face detection. Default: `false`
`faceDetectionThrottleMs`	`number`	Minimum milliseconds between `onFaceDetected` emits. Default: `100`
`onFaceDetected`	Function	Callback while face detection is active, with one entry per detected face (empty array if none).
`onFaceDetectionInstallStatus`	Function	Android only. Callback while the MLKit face detection module is being downloaded by Google Play Services. See Android: pre-download the ML Kit model above to skip the first-run download.

Imperative API

Note: Must be called on a valid camera ref

capture()

Capture image as JPEG.

A temporary file is created. You must move this file to a permanent location (e.g. the app's 'Documents' folder) if you need it beyond the current session of the app as it may be deleted when the user leaves the app. You can move files by using a file system library such as react-native-fs or expo-filesystem. (On Android we currently have an unsupported outputPath prop but it's subject to change at any time).

Note that the reason you're getting a URL despite it being a file is because Android 10+ encourages URIs. To keep things consistent regardless of settings or platform we always send back a URI.

const { uri } = await this.camera.capture();
// uri = 'file:///data/user/0/com.myorg.myapp/cache/ckcap123123123123.jpg'

If you want to store it permanently, here's an example using react-native-fs:

import RNFS from 'react-native-fs';
// [...]
let { uri } = await this.camera.capture();
if (uri.startsWith('file://')) {
  // Platform dependent, iOS & Android uses '/'
  const pathSplitter = '/';
  // file:///foo/bar.jpg => /foo/bar.jpg
  const filePath = uri.replace('file://', '');
  // /foo/bar.jpg => [foo, bar.jpg]
  const pathSegments = filePath.split(pathSplitter);
  // [foo, bar.jpg] => bar.jpg
  const fileName = pathSegments[pathSegments.length - 1];

  await RNFS.moveFile(filePath, `${RNFS.DocumentDirectoryPath}/${fileName}`);
  uri = `file://${destFilePath}`;
}

Using with Expo

If you are using Expo Managed Workflow, you can use this library with a third-party plugin expo-react-native-camera-kit.

See more here

Contributing

Pull Requests are welcome, if you open a pull request we will do our best to get to it in a timely manner
Pull Request Reviews are even more welcome! we need help testing, reviewing, and updating open PRs
If you are interested in contributing more actively, please contact us.

License

The MIT License.

See LICENSE