- Family member has 720p webcam
- Family member buys shiny new 1080p webcam
- Family member plugs in shiny new webcam and gives me a videocall to test it
- New camera works flawlessly. I get to keep the old 720p cam. Yippee!!
...BUT THEN
- Family member goes to the website listed on camera's packaging and clicks the big blue download button
- download button installs custom usb driver and companion app
- companion app has twenty quadrillion toggles and dials spread across fifty billion tabs and sub menus. Family member spends all evening twiddling with it.
- No matter what, the image looks like crap. Too bright, but not enough contrast. Worse than it did originally.
- next day family member asks for his old 720p webcam back, I get to keep the 1080p webcam
I'm happy with my new webcam so I'm not complaining, but why do people do this?? Why do manufacturers make these shitty custom driver? The whole point of USB is to be plug-and-play without any custom software.
This might sound like proselytism, but on linux (any flavor :D) there's a utility to configure/pair devices with Logitech's unify dongles, which also provide battery info when available. It's nice.
…and now that I looked at the newer versions, it actually manage a lot of other logitech stuff beyond the usb dongles. Double nice. It's called solaar.