Belkin’s Continuity Camera mount for desktops is here

Belkin’s Continuity Camera mount for desktops is here

For those dedicated to magnetically mounting a phone to their screens so they can have that good webcam quality. | Image: Belkin

When Belkin released its Continuity Camera mount for Mac laptops in October, it promised that a version for desktops would be coming soon. Now, it’s finally here. You can get the accessory that attaches to your display and magnetically holds your phone so you can use it as a webcam from the Apple Store for $29.95 — though it is worth noting that price may not stick around, as Belkin spokesperson Cassie Pineda tells me that the correct price is $39.95 and that the company is working on getting it fixed.

Compared to the mobile-friendly version, which is designed to stay on your phone and latch onto your computer with a little hook, the Belkin iPhone Mount for Mac Desktops is a bit more flexible. It has a tilting mechanism that lets you point the camera down by up to 25 degrees in case the top of your monitor is above your face. It’s also compatible with a wide range of displays, with Belkin saying that it’ll work with iMacs from 2017 and later, the iMac Pro, the Apple Studio Display and Pro Display XDR, as well as “most external displays and monitors.”

Image: Belkin

The mounting mechanism makes the accessory compatible with monitors of varying thickness, and it has a few extra quality-of-life features.

If you don’t want to hang your phone off your monitor while using it as a webcam, or if doing so with your setup would result in a bad angle, the mount also has a thread that lets you attach it to a standard tripod.

Compared to a high-end webcam, there is one downside to using a mount and your iPhone, and that’s power — like the mobile version before it, this mount won’t wirelessly charge your phone, which could be a problem if you’re in meetings all day long. It does, however, have a cable management hole if you wanted to route a standard Lightning cable to your phone, but that’s definitely more of a hassle than if you could just plug in the mount and have it do MagSafe charging. Thankfully, this probably isn’t much of a concern if you’re just planning on using it for occasional, short meetings.

This isn’t the only desktop-focused mount meant to be used with Continuity Camera, but when Apple announced the feature, it promoted the mounts from Belkin. That’s not to say that the piece of plastic you mount your phone to will have a huge effect on the performance of an iOS 16 and macOS Ventura software feature, but it’s nice to have options. That’s especially true given that this accessory is slightly less expensive than Moment’s version.