Supercharge Your React Apps: Introducing 5 New Native API Hooks in react-hook-lab

We've all been there: you need to implement a camera capture feature, grab the user's geolocation, or monitor user activity, and you end up writing hundreds of lines of fragile, device-specific boilerplate Web API code.

Today, I'm thrilled to announce a major update to react-hook-lab! We have added 5 brand-new, production-ready React hooks that wrap complex browser APIs into simple, type-safe, and zero-dependency functions.

Let's dive into what's new in this release!

1. useCamera

Accessing the user's camera is notoriously tricky, especially when managing streams, handling browser permissions, taking snapshots, and safely releasing media tracks. useCamera handles all of this automatically, including high-quality video and audio recording.

Here is how easy it is to capture a photo snapshot with useCamera:

import { useCamera } from 'react-hook-lab';
export function CameraSnapshot() {
  const { videoRef, status, requestCamera, captureImage, imageUrl } = useCamera();
  return (
    <div className="camera-card">
      <h3>Camera Status: {status}</h3>
      <button onClick={requestCamera}>Turn On Camera</button>
      <button onClick={() => captureImage()}>Take Snapshot</button>
      <video ref={videoRef} autoPlay playsInline style={{ width: '100%', maxHeight: '300px' }} />
      {imageUrl && (
        <div>
          <h4>Captured Image:</h4>
          <img src={imageUrl} alt="Captured Snapshot" style={{ width: '100%' }} />
        </div>
      )}
    </div>
  );
}

2. useLocation

The Geolocation API can be difficult to track reactively, especially when permissions change after page load. useLocation tracks permission states reactively and retrieves coordinate data safely with high accuracy.

import { useLocation } from 'react-hook-lab';
export function TrackLocation() {
  const { location, status, error, retry } = useLocation();
  return (
    <div className="location-card">
      <h3>GPS Tracker</h3>
      <p>Permission Status: {status}</p>
      {location && (
        <p>
          Latitude: {location.lat.toFixed(4)} <br />
          Longitude: {location.lng.toFixed(4)} <br />
          Accuracy: {location.accuracy} meters
        </p>
      )}
      {error && (
        <div>
          <p style={{ color: 'red' }}>{error}</p>
          <button onClick={retry}>Retry Location Request</button>
        </div>
      )}
    </div>
  );
}

3. Other Powerful New Hooks

• useMicrophone: Safely request microphone access, record audio files, and get real-time, throttled volume level updates (throttled to 10fps for ultimate rendering performance).
• useIdle: Track user inactivity effortlessly. This is highly useful for auto-logging out users or pausing heavy background polling when the user is away.
• useTimezone: Easily fetch the user's localized timezone configuration string in one clean declaration.

All of these new hooks come with 100% test coverage and full TypeScript autocomplete support out of the box.

Resources & Links

• GitHub Repository: react-hook-lab on GitHub
• NPM Package: react-hook-lab on npm
• LinkedIn Profile: Connect with me on LinkedIn

Originally published on my blog. You can read the alternative breakdown here.