🎈 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 Camera preview support in iOS simulator

Installation (RN > 0.60)

1yarn add react-native-camera-kit

1cd 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/)

1<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
2<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/)

1<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
2<string>For taking photos</string>
3
4<key>NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription</key>
5<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

1import { Camera, CameraType } from 'react-native-camera-kit';

1<Camera
2  ref={(ref) => (this.camera = ref)}
3  cameraType={CameraType.Back} // front/back(default)
4  flashMode="auto"
5/>

Barcode / QR Code Scanning

Additionally, the Camera can be used for barcode scanning

1<Camera
2  ...
3  // Barcode props
4  scanBarcode={true}
5  onReadCode={(event) => Alert.alert('QR code found')} // optional
6  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
7  laserColor='red' // (default red) optional, color of laser in scanner frame
8  frameColor='white' // (default white) optional, color of border of scanner frame
9/>

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
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
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
onCaptureButtonPressIn	Function	Callback when iPhone capture button is pressed in. Ex: onCaptureButtonPressIn={() => console.log("volume button pressed in")}
onCaptureButtonPressOut	Function	Callback when iPhone capture 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
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)}

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.

1const { uri } = await this.camera.capture();
2// 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:

1import RNFS from 'react-native-fs';
2// [...]
3let { uri } = await this.camera.capture();
4if (uri.startsWith('file://')) {
5  // Platform dependent, iOS & Android uses '/'
6  const pathSplitter = '/';
7  // file:///foo/bar.jpg => /foo/bar.jpg
8  const filePath = uri.replace('file://', '');
9  // /foo/bar.jpg => [foo, bar.jpg]
10  const pathSegments = filePath.split(pathSplitter);
11  // [foo, bar.jpg] => bar.jpg
12  const fileName = pathSegments[pathSegments.length - 1];
13
14  await RNFS.moveFile(filePath, `${RNFS.DocumentDirectoryPath}/${fileName}`);
15  uri = `file://${destFilePath}`;
16}

checkDeviceCameraAuthorizationStatus (iOS only)

1const isCameraAuthorized = await Camera.checkDeviceCameraAuthorizationStatus();

return values:

AVAuthorizationStatusAuthorized returns true

AVAuthorizationStatusNotDetermined returns -1

otherwise, returns false

requestDeviceCameraAuthorization (iOS only)

1const isUserAuthorizedCamera = await Camera.requestDeviceCameraAuthorization();

AVAuthorizationStatusAuthorized returns true

otherwise, returns false

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