Android offers multiple solutions for capturing the screen and transferring the captured stream. In this post I would like to show how to do screencast from one Android device to another via USB and WiFi with the help of my Bugjaeger app.

The Bugjaeger app consists of tools used by professional Android developers and hackers (tools like ADB and fastboot). These tools offer a lot of functionality and wrapping this functionality into a simple mobile UI is not a trivial task. You might therefore find the learning curve of using Bugjaeger app to be a bit more steep than that of the other regular apps. I still think that you can easily learn how to use Bugjaeger, if you're willing to invest a little bit of time.

Screen capturing through the Bugjaeger app should allow you to capture the screen between phones near real-time. Depending on the hardware of both devices, there might be some latencies during screencast, but these should be minimal.

You should additionally be able to transfer taps and swipes even though it might be a bit more restricted that directly touching the screen of the target device.

The premium version also allows you to record the screen and store the video as an MPEG4 file.

If you're only interested in taking high quality screenshots, I wrote another blogpost that shows how to do that.

How Does Screen Capturing With Bugjaeger Work

The video stream of the captured screen will be transferred from one Android device to the other. The two devices will each have a specific role

1. Host Device
2. Target Device

The host will be the Android device that needs to have Bugjaeger app installed. This device will display the screencast video. It can also control the target device by sending taps and swipes (Bugjaeger app can control the target in many other ways, but here I'm trying to focus on screen capturing).

The target is the device from which you want to capture the screen content. This devices will transfer the content of it's screen to host and listen to host's commands.

Screencast through USB

The initial setup and capturing can be performed in a couple steps

1. Enable developer options and USB debugging on target device. This step only needs to be performed once, and if you then leave the options enabled, you should be able to start screencast with Bugjaeger right away. If you're not sure how to do this, check out the official docs.

2. Connect host and target through USB OTG cable

3. Start Bugjaeger app on host device

4. Allow Bugjaeger to handle USB connection on host device. After plugging in the USB cable, a system dialog should pop up, asking you whether you want to allow Bugjaeger app to handle the connected type of USB device (Android USB device). You should allow USB connection. I additionally recommend to tick the default handling checkbox also, so that you don't need to confirm this dialog every time you connect a new device. You can easily clear the default handling in app settings later.

5. Authorize ADB connection on the target device. Another system dialog should pop up on the target device asking for ADB authorization which you also will need to confirm. You'll again have the option to tick a checkbox, so that the dialog doesn't pop up every time you connect the same device. After authorization a new device should appear in Bugjaeger's device list.

6. Switch to Screencap tab in Bugjaeger app

7. Start screencast by clicking on the video icon in top menu

You should now be able to see the screen of the target device inside of the Bugjaeger app. Android sends a new frame only when something on the screen actually changed and due to buffering, you might initially only see a black screen. Therefore, on the target device, try to perform an action that changes the content of the screen.

You can change the orientation and resolution of the video stream in Bugjaeger settings accessible through the top 3-dot menu button.

If you want to store the video stream as MPEG4, download the premium version.

Wireless Screencast through WiFi

Bugjaeger also allows wireless connection, if both devices are using the same WiFi network connection. There's again some initial setup required, but it should still be pretty trivial.

For wireless screencast we first need to configure the target device to allow wireless ADB connection. This configuration needs only be performed once and it should last till next reboot.

To enable wireless connections, first perform the steps 1 till 5 from previous section. After that do the following

1. Switch to the first Commands tab

2. Execute "Connect through WiFi" command. This will enable remote wireless connection on the target device.

3. Disconnect the USB cable and open the Connection dialog

4. Connect to target device. If you're not sure about the IP address, you can again use "Get WiFi address" command from the commands tab. Additionally, you can click on the search button (lens icon) and let Bugjaeger find all ADB devices on the local network

Conclusion

Bugjaeger app gives you the functionality of tools used by Android professionals. These professional tools are normally used from a development machine. Bugjaeger allows you to use this functionality directly from an Android device.

One of the features that Bugjaeger offers is screen capture or screencast. The screencast works also wirelessly and configuring it should not be too difficult.

Check out the Bugjaeger app at the play store and uncover the plethora of powerful features.

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