Hi,
Last weekend I started the process of transitioning from my smartphone to the Kompakt as my main phone and it’s been a surprising journey. For once it’s much easier than I anticipated. I don’t want to own two similar devices, so the Kompakt needs to do everything I need on daily basis in order for me to keep it. I love how it instantly made me more intentional about what apps I wanted to install (vs what I can access at home on a pc or just not use). Even though I thought I had already reduced the apps on my smartphone to a minimum, the Kompakt made me realise I can do with even less.
At this point I’m nearly at a point where I have everything set up as I like it and all “remaining” apps running, except for one. I have a hopefully small hiccup with my banking app; currently I can’t login without a front facing camera. Once I’m logged in I expect it to work just fine, as my previous smartphone was already degoogled.
Here’s the problem: while logging in, it needs to make a mandatory, one time face scan to make sure it’s me. Without a “front facing camera” I get stuck at this step. I already contacted their support to ask if there is an alternative login method an that doesn’t seem to be the case.
To be clear, I’m fine not having the front facing camera, I don’t need it. So now I’m getting to the point of this topic. Would it be possible for the Kompakt, whenever an app requests the front facing camera, to use the rear camera instead?
I would also be happy with a diy software solution, since I only need to do this once. Can I trick the banking app (or any app for that matter) into using the rear camera or a usb webcam? Is there an app or adb command to achieve this? So far I haven’t found a solution to this problem.
I’m also having this issue. I looked at using ADB to upload a new camera config that swaps the ids, however I am not confident enough to mess with that.
It would be nice to have a hidden setting to turn on “use back camera as front” for these use cases.
This post mentions using a usbc or bluetooth webcam to be the front facing, however when I tried that it didn’t work.
@Amooseisloose I also read about the camera config possibilities, but I thought those files were write protected and only editable with a rooted phone. Let me know if you figure something out.
For the moment I settled for carrying more “emergency” cash. Most banking stuff I can do at home on a pc anyway.
I found something else in that post you linked. The op mentioned Openbank and that he got their app to work on the MK. If I really don’t find a way to use my current bank, I might get an extra account with them as it seems to be free. But I think it’s only an option in Europe.
And there’s something else I noticed last week, that might be responsible for not being able to log in to my bank app (I’m using bunq). And that is the lack of google services. My previous phone was a Pixel with GrapheneOS that allowed me to install or delete google services on the fly. The app’s always worked fine without google services, but last week I noticed the camera function inside the app for scanning qr codes or invoices doesn’t work. After reinstalling GS, that worked fine again. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the face scan screen again, even after deleting and reinstalling the app. So I can’t say for sure that it also requires Google Services. This is not really helpful, but “hacking” a front facing camera might not be enough to login to the banking apps.