I'm not sure that the product the author describes trying to make is really any better than the top-of-the-line Logitech units that sell for $200. I have seen them in action, and unless you're pixel-peeping at 4k, their results are at least on par with a mid-range phone. Without investing $$$ in computational photography to clean up the images, you're not going to get flagship smartphone quality photos out of cellphone-sized assemblies, no matter how high quality they are.
A more interesting take on this space would be to try and offer the same quality as the mirrorless camera setup in a smaller and cheaper package. Upscale to a 1-inch or APS-C chip and a wide aperture lens, and you could get the blurred out background effect naturally, get an overall higher quality image. Without the need for a display and by offloading autofocusing compute to the computer, you'd be able to reduce the per-unit cost substantially below a standalone camera.
Another interesting product for this space would be a teleprompter-style monitor-camera pair that effectively lets you place the camera behind the screen. This allows the user to naturally maintain eye contact with the camera, which can marginally improve connection and trust with the human on the other side of the call. For, say, sales teams that may have to rely more and more on video calls, compared to in-person meetings, this marginal improvement could be worth a lot of money.
A more interesting take on this space would be to try and offer the same quality as the mirrorless camera setup in a smaller and cheaper package. Upscale to a 1-inch or APS-C chip and a wide aperture lens, and you could get the blurred out background effect naturally, get an overall higher quality image. Without the need for a display and by offloading autofocusing compute to the computer, you'd be able to reduce the per-unit cost substantially below a standalone camera.
Another interesting product for this space would be a teleprompter-style monitor-camera pair that effectively lets you place the camera behind the screen. This allows the user to naturally maintain eye contact with the camera, which can marginally improve connection and trust with the human on the other side of the call. For, say, sales teams that may have to rely more and more on video calls, compared to in-person meetings, this marginal improvement could be worth a lot of money.