How do I get my digital projector to display a photo on my android phone

May 4, 2021 12:08 PM

I'm an artist. I have a photo in my android phone gallery that I want to display so I can trace a larger version of it onto a canvas. The phone and projector are connected, but now I need the projector to display my photo.

I got an HDMI cable for my phone and plugged it into the projector. The projector is now seeing my phone--hooray--but it's displaying the factory desktop of the phone, not what I see when I look at the phone.

There's a photo in my picture gallery that I want to project. If I go to the gallery and select and display that photo on my phone, I can see it on the phone, but nothing is happening with the projector.

I've tried to use the EZCast app with this, but it seems to think I want to send my phone image to a TV screen. I just want to project a photo from my phone to the canvas or wall.

I have a Galaxy S10+ and a digital projector called Yaber. The manual tells you to connect an android using an HDMI cable, which I've done, but it doesn't say anything about how to get the projector to recognize what's happening on the phone from that point.

Any suggestions welcome...

posted by cartoonella to Technology (4 answers total)

It sounds like you’re displaying Samsung DEX. Check your notifications area on the phone (while the HDMI is connected) and see if you can

a) turn the phone into a touch screen for the DEX screen - in this case you would now open the gallery on the DEX screen and find your photo.

b) disable DEX and switch to regular HDMI screen mirroring, in which case open the gallery and find your photo as normal.

Here’s a video on switching from Dex mode to HDMI mirror mode.
posted by tiamat at 12:20 PM on May 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I'll give it a shot. Thanks tiamat!
posted by cartoonella at 12:29 PM on May 4, 2021

Or a third option in DEX:
c) connect a USB or Bluetooth keyboard and/or mouse to the phone, and use them to navigate the screen. I've only done this once to back up data on a device with damaged screen before swapping it for a new phone, but my HDMI adapter also had a USB port, and I had a bunch of old USB keyboards/mice/hubs laying around, so it was easier to stay in DEX than try to use the broken screen to change the mode.
posted by yuwtze at 1:43 PM on May 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Actually I ended up using an iPod to project the image I wanted, and it works great.

Thanks for the suggestion, Yuwtze! I think I will try the keyboard and mouse option you recommend. I'm curious about that.

Tiamat, thanks so much for the info on DeX! I wasn't able to use it for mirroring or disable it, but this solution might work for someone. Apparently previous versions of the Galaxy had a button on the swipe-down menu that toggled between DeX and phone mirroring, but it was disabled in later models. (argh)

For anyone with developer skills, apparently these four lines of code will disable DeX (but not remove it) and permit screen mirroring. You need developer options enabled, a USB connection to a computer, and ADB shell (Android Debug Bridge):

pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sec.android.desktopmode.uiservice
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.desktopsystemui
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sec.android.app.desktoplauncher
pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.sec.android.app.dexonpc
posted by cartoonella at 8:01 AM on May 5, 2021