Samsung Galaxy Tab A - USB Tethering

[KevinLAndroid]

For my job, I am trying to hack together a hardware demo getting a cheap USB camera video feed to display in realtime on a tablet.

Because of size constraints, etc, we've built a particular USB camera into our prototype. The camera connects to android devices and comes with an android app to view the camera feed. However, to make this work, the camera has to be plugged into an android device via USB, and then USB tethering must be enabled.

I installed the app on my Google pixel phone, enabled USB tethering, and everything works great. For the actual demo, I want to get the video feed displaying on a tablet.

I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1" tablet for this exact purpose - a nice large Full HD display that runs android. However, after installing the app, I realize that there is no way in the interface to turn on USB tethering. When I plug the usb camera in, the tablet asks if I want to treat the USB device as a media device, photo device, or for charging. However, I can never turn on USB tethering, and the video feed never connects.

Our demo is next week and we can't pick a different USB camera. So, my questions:

1) Is there any reasonable way for me to activate USB Tethering on my Samsung Galaxy Tab A? Why is this not an option, whereas it is easy on my Google Pixel?

2) If this is not possible to make work, does anybody recommend a different tablet that has a 10", Full HD display that DOES enable USB tethering?

Thank you!

Kevin L

 

[B. Diddy]

I moved this from the Tab S4 forum to the Tab A forum for more specific traffic.