Is there any way to use Android CameraX API with minimum SDK less than 21?

Question

Is it possible to use AndroidX CameraX API on minimum SDK version less than 21?

Answer 1

There is not. As noted in the official CameraX overview, it only has backward compatibility to Android 5.0 (API level 21).

This page also hints at the reason for this: It makes use of the camera2 API, which was added in API level 21. Previously, there was a different (and less powerful) camera API, so adding full backward compatibility would probably be impossible, and even partial backward compatibility would be non-trivial.