With iOS/iPadOS 14 Apple has added support for face tracking purely with a camera:
“Face tracking supports devices with Apple Neural Engine in iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 and requires a device with a TrueDepth camera on iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 and earlier. To run the sample app, set the run destination to an actual device; the Simulator doesn’t support augmented reality.”
I’m looking at replacing my older iPad with an iPad Mini 5th Gen (with A12 chip) that should support it, but does it work well with camera+ neural engine only? Has anyone compared back to back? The other option is an Air or Pro instead, with TrueDepth camera, but those are significantly more expensive and a larger form factor that could be a lot worse for this use.