Pyre.Stream for Android

The Android app turns your phone into a Pyre.Stream camera. The Camera tab is a native camera and encoder that goes live with one button, and the other tabs are the same Pyre pages you know from pyre.stream, trimmed to fit a phone. It is the app for streaming IRL, from a desk without a PC, or as a second camera next to one.

Install Pyre from Google Play. The listing is called Pyre. It is the Pyre.Stream app, the one with the camera.
Open the sign in page on the phone. Under the usual sign in buttons the app adds Sign in with QR and Enter a code instead. You can also sign in with your username or email.
Show a code on your computer. Sign in at pyre.stream on a computer and open the Add a phone panel, which lives on the Sources page (see Pair a phone). It shows a QR code and the same link written out.
Scan it, or paste it. Sign in with QR opens the phone’s camera: Point at the QR code on your computer. If the camera will not cooperate, Enter a code instead opens Sign in with a code, where you paste the link or the code. Either way the phone is signed in to your account and registers itself as one of your inputs, with no password typed on the phone.
Allow the camera and the microphone the first time the Camera tab asks.

If you said no to the camera or the microphone, the Camera tab shows Camera & microphone access is needed to go live. with Try again, and Open Settings for when Android has stopped asking.

The four tabs

Tab	What it is
Camera	The native camera, the Go Live button and the live HUD. This is where you go live.
Chat	Your merged chat, with Live and History, one row of platform filters, and the message box docked at the bottom. Long press a message for the moderation menu.
Dashboard	A slim Stream Manager: your Offline or LIVE status, uptime, viewers and signal while live, the quick actions (Clip, Marker, Ad break, BRB, Skip alert, Delay), your title and category, How you go live, where you are going live to, and your activity feed.
Settings	The phone’s own settings. Account and channel settings opens your web settings inside the tab.

The Dashboard is honest about what it leaves out: Music, TTS, ads, protection and layouts stay on pyre.stream.

The tabs are a slim rail down the left when the screen is landscape, and a bar along the bottom in portrait. While you are live in landscape the rail hides so the picture gets the whole screen. Tap the preview and it comes back for a few seconds.

Switching tabs never touches your stream. You can read chat or press a quick action for as long as you like, and the Camera tab keeps a live dot so you can see the stream is still going. Android Back on a web tab goes back through that page first, then to the Camera tab.

There is one Go Live button in the app, the one on the Camera tab. The Dashboard shows your live status and an Open camera button instead of a second Go Live.

How you go live

Before you press Go Live, the top of the Camera tab is one setup card that says how you will go live. Its first line is the route, Pyre cloud, Your PC or Cloud Studio, then a dot for each platform and a count such as 3 platforms. Its second line is your quality (for example 1080p · 30 fps · 4.5 Mbps) and the stream shape, 16:9 or 9:16. The route is read from the same answer the Go Live button uses, refreshed while you are idle, so it is never a guess.

Each part of the card is a shortcut: tap the quality to change it, tap the shape to open Stream shape, and tap the route line to open the Dashboard, where the How you go live card shows your current setup and a Change button. Change opens the chooser:

Pick how your phone’s stream reaches your platforms. You can change this any time you’re not live.

It offers five setups, two without your PC and three with it:

Setup	The path	What it needs
Phone straight to your platforms (best for IRL)	Phone, Pyre cloud, your platforms	Nothing but the phone. Starts in seconds. No overlays or alerts on stream.
Phone with your overlays	Phone, Cloud Studio, your platforms	No PC. Your scenes, alerts and overlays go on stream. Takes about a minute to start, and is 16:9 only.
Your PC adds your scenes	Phone, your PC, Pyre cloud, your platforms	The Pyre app open on your PC with Desktop Studio started. Your phone shows up there as a camera, and Pyre sends the result to every platform. Your PC has to stay on and online.
Your PC sends to every platform	Phone, your PC, your platforms	The Pyre app open on your PC, and your PC live first. No Pyre cloud in the path, but your home upload carries one copy per platform.
Your PC adds scenes and sends to every platform	Phone, your PC (Desktop Studio), your platforms	The Pyre app open on your PC with Desktop Studio started. No Pyre cloud in the path, one upload per platform from your home connection.

Each card carries a live status line, so the chooser tells you what works right now rather than letting you pick something that will fail. The common ones:

Verify your email to stream through Pyre cloud or Cloud Studio. Open the link we emailed you, then come back.
Pyre cloud needs credits or Cloud Studio needs credits. Add credits on pyre.stream under Billing.
No platforms turned on. Turn on at least one platform on pyre.stream first.
Your PC app is offline. Open Pyre on your PC and sign in. The PC setups become available while it is running, and the card names your PC once it is.
Not available right now on Cloud Studio means no cloud machine is free. Try again in a few minutes.

Pick a card and press Use this setup. The choice is the same setting as the Live settings card on the web, so changing it on the phone changes it everywhere (Stream modes and Cloud Studio explains what each mode runs). It locks while you are live: Mode is locked while you’re live. End the stream to change it.

When the route cannot work

If your setup has nowhere to send the stream, the route line of the setup card turns into the problem in amber or red, and tapping it, or pressing Go Live, opens a sheet with the reason and the fix:

The sheet says	The fix it offers
You have no destinations turned on, so there is nowhere to stream to.	Set up destinations
Cloud relay is off and your PC app isn’t open, so this stream has nowhere to go.	Turn on Cloud relay, or Open Pyre on your PC
Your setup uses your PC, but the Pyre app on your PC isn’t open.	Open Pyre on your PC, or Change how you go live
Pyre’s relay isn’t available right now. Try again in a minute.	Try again
Cloud relay is off, so your PC app streams this, but it isn’t live right now.	Turn on Cloud relay, or Go live on your PC first

The last row is a warning rather than a block, so that sheet also offers Go live anyway. The fixes that need the web open the right page in the Dashboard tab.

Go live

Press Go Live on the Camera tab. It reads Connecting…, then LIVE with a timer. On Phone with your overlays the button first reads Starting Cloud Studio… (this can take a minute) with a Cancel, because a cloud machine has to be ready before it can build your picture.

The quality on the setup card, or Settings ▸ Quality, opens Stream settings, where you set whether this phone is the main camera or a second camera, and its resolution, frame rate and bitrate.

Start muted

You can press Mute before you go live. The stream then starts with your microphone off, so nobody hears you setting up, and the mic meter shows it is muted. Press Mute again when you are ready to talk. When the stream ends, the mic is back on for next time.

The Camera HUD

While you are live, the top of the screen is one status row:

LIVE and the uptime. During a test it reads TEST instead.
Viewers, the total across your platforms.
The signal pill: bars and the Mbps you are sending, reading Good or Weak signal.

Down the right edge is a mic meter, with the name of the mic in use under it, so you can see you are being heard without listening back. When you are muted it says so.

Problems show as one line under the HUD, worst first, at most two at a time, for example Weak signal · YouTube is behind, or Twitch is down. When the phone streams through your PC and the PC has not sent anything on after a few seconds, it says Your PC isn't sending this anywhere.

Tap the signal pill for Stream health. The sheet starts with Viewers: the total, and each platform with its own count. A platform gets a warning ring when it is behind or down. Your phone lists what the phone is Sending against its Target, the Frame rate, Dropped frames, the Network (Wi-Fi or cellular), the Phone temp (Normal, Warm or Hot) and the Battery, with charging. Destinations lists each platform and how it is doing.

Follows, subs, cheers, tips, raids and the rest pop up as short toasts at the top right of the camera. They disappear after a few seconds, at most three stack up, and tapping one opens the Dashboard at your activity feed.

Controls

Every control sits in one dock at the bottom of the camera. Before you go live it holds Flip camera, Lens, Mute and the scene button, with Go Live and Test side by side under them. While you are live it holds the scene button, then Mute, Flip camera, Pause, Chat on camera, Preview and End.

Control	What it does
Mute	Mutes your microphone, and turns red while it is muted. The picture keeps going. Works before you go live too (see Start muted).
Flip camera	Switches between the back and front camera.
Lens	Lists every camera on the phone, so you can pick a wide or zoom lens. Shown before you go live.
Pause	Sends black video and mutes the mic, together, and shows a Paused card on the phone. Your stream stays up, so a quick break does not end it. Resume brings both back.
Scenes	The scene button names your current scene and opens the scene sheet. Shown when your setup has scenes (Cloud Studio, or your PC with Desktop Studio).
Chat on camera	Shows or hides the read only chat over the preview.
Preview	Shows or hides What viewers see, your stream as it goes out. Shown while you are live when your setup has a preview. See Live preview.
End	Stops the stream. See Stop streaming.

In landscape the groups stay the same: the setup card or status row at the top left, the dock along the bottom.

Zoom by pinching the preview. Double tap to go back to 1x. Flipping the camera also resets the zoom.

Chat on camera is your merged chat, read only, in the bottom left over the preview. Lines fade after a while, and taps go straight through it to the buttons underneath, so it never gets in the way of a control.

Scenes lists your scenes, and picking one switches it for every platform at once. With Cloud Studio the sheet also offers BRB while you are live, and Edit scenes opens the phone Studio. With your PC, the PC switches scenes while Desktop Studio is running.

Live preview

While you are live, the Preview button in the dock opens What viewers see: a small player with your outgoing stream as the Pyre relay has it. It runs a few seconds behind the camera, and the player says by how much, for example About 4 s behind, or A few seconds behind when it cannot measure it. Press Preview again to hide it.

What you see depends on how you go live:

Setup	What the preview shows
Phone with your overlays (Cloud Studio)	Your full stream: scenes, alerts, chat box and the rest of your overlays.
Your PC adds your scenes	Your full stream as your PC builds it, through Pyre.
Phone straight to your platforms	The camera only, because that is what your viewers get.
Your PC sends to every platform, or Your PC adds scenes and sends to every platform	No preview. Your PC sends to the platforms itself, so Pyre never has the stream, and the Preview button is not shown.

When the phone goes straight to your platforms, the preview tells you once per stream: Overlays aren't part of this setup. Your phone goes straight to your platforms, so viewers see the camera only. To show alerts and a chat box, go live through Cloud Studio or your PC. How you go live under it opens the chooser in the Dashboard. You can also close the note.

A test has its own player, so the Preview button does not show during a test (see Test your stream).

Using the player

It starts muted. Your microphone is live, so playing the stream through the speaker would pick itself up and echo. The player says Use headphones to listen. Plug in headphones, then press Unmute preview.
Enlarge preview makes it bigger, and Shrink preview puts it back.
Close preview hides it, the same as pressing Preview in the dock.
Drag it to any corner. Let go and it snaps to the nearest corner, and it stays in that corner next time. The first time you open it, it says Drag to any corner.
It is off the first time. After that the app remembers whether you left it on or off, so a preview you like stays on for your next stream.

The preview only plays while you can see it. Switching tab, going to Picture-in-Picture or leaving the app stops it, and it starts again when you come back to the Camera tab.

The player uses a private link that only you can open. Nobody else can watch your stream through it.

If the preview cannot get a picture, it shows Connecting to your stream for a little while, then Preview isn't available right now. with Your stream is still live. and Try again. Your stream is not affected, only the preview, and it stops using data until you press Try again.

Stream shape and screen rotation

These are two different settings, and the difference matters.

Stream shape is what your viewers get: 16:9 landscape (the default) or 9:16 vertical. It is the shape chip on the setup card, and a tap opens the Stream shape sheet, where you pick Landscape 16:9 or Vertical 9:16. The camera always follows the shape and crops to it, however you hold the phone: hold the phone upright in 16:9 and you stream a landscape band from the middle, turn it sideways in 9:16 and you stream an upright band. The preview is drawn in the stream shape, so you see the crop before you go live.

Vertical suits TikTok and Shorts. Twitch, YouTube and Kick show it with black bars.

The shape is one setting for your whole account. Changing it on the phone changes the orientation on pyre.stream and on your desktop studio, and the other way round. It cannot change while you are live. Cloud Studio is 16:9 only, so with Phone with your overlays chosen the chip reads 16:9, and the Stream shape sheet says Cloud Studio streams in 16:9 for now.

Screen rotation, in Settings, only turns the app’s screen: Follow phone (the default), Landscape or Portrait. It never changes what your viewers see.

Picture-in-Picture

While you are live or testing, leaving the app does not hide your camera. It shrinks into a small floating window, so you can answer a message or check a map and still see what you are sending. The window shows the picture, the LIVE or TEST badge and the time, and nothing else. Tap it to come back to the full Camera tab.

On Android 12 and later this happens automatically as you go home. On older versions the app does it when you leave. Either way your stream keeps running: the camera, the mic and the connection carry on exactly as before.

Controls in the small window

The small window has its own buttons, so you can handle the common things without going back to the app:

Button	What it does
Mute or Unmute	Mutes or unmutes your microphone, exactly like Mute in the dock. While you are paused it reads Unmute, and pressing it resumes fully.
Pause or Resume	Pauses or resumes the stream, exactly like Pause in the dock.
End stream, or End test during a test	Never ends anything by itself. It brings the app back to full screen and asks you to confirm, just like End in the dock.

Some phones allow fewer buttons in the small window. Then Pause goes first, then End, and Mute always stays.

Studio on the phone

The phone has its own Studio for quick changes to your scenes. Open it from Settings ▸ Studio, or Edit scenes in the Scenes sheet. Its own line says what it is for: Move and resize layers on the preview. Full editor on pyre.stream.

Scenes run across the top. Tapping one makes it the active scene and opens it for editing.
The preview. With a Cloud Studio session running, it shows your actual stream picture, refreshed about once a second while the Studio is open. Without one it says Preview needs Cloud Studio. Switch Studio to Cloud to see and edit your scenes. and draws each visible layer as a rectangle, so you can still arrange them.
Layers, top first, each with a visibility switch, Move up, Move down and Remove.
Move and resize. Tap a layer on the preview to select it, drag it, or drag a corner handle to resize. You can also type X, Y, W and H. A change is saved when you lift your finger.
Undo takes back your last change.
Add source adds either one of your Pyre sources (your alert box, or a widget you have already set up on the web) or a Browser source from an https:// address, at a size you pick.

Some things stay on the web. The phone does not create widgets or style alerts, and it shows two kinds of scene read only: Vertical scenes are edited on the web. and, for a scene you manage live in OBS, This scene is edited in Live OBS on your PC.

See The Studio and your scenes for the full editor.

Settings

Setting	What it does
Quality	Stream settings: main or second camera, resolution, frame rate, bitrate.
Microphone	Picks the mic. Automatic (Android chooses) is the default, or pick the phone mic, a wired headset, a USB mic or a Bluetooth headset. You can switch while live and the stream keeps going.
Screen rotation	Follow phone, Landscape or Portrait. Turns the app, not the stream.
How you go live	Shows your current route. Tap to open the chooser in the Dashboard.
Studio	Opens the phone Studio.
Show chat on camera	Chat over the preview, on or off.
Chat lines on camera	How many lines the chat keeps: 3, 5, 8 or 12.
Show alerts on camera	The event toasts, on or off.
Vibrate on alerts	A short buzz with each toast. Off by default.

Two more switches, Lower quality when the phone is hot and Notify me if my stream drops, are already in the list and say Coming in the next update. They do not do anything yet.

Stop streaming

Press End and confirm. If nothing else is live, the stream ends on every platform.

If another of your devices is live too, or your phone is streaming through your PC, you get Stop streaming? instead: Keep your broadcast running on another live device, or end it for everyone. Pick Keep streaming on your PC (or the other device) to hand the broadcast over and stop only the phone, or End stream for everyone.

Test before you go live

The Camera tab has a Test button next to Go Live. It goes live privately, to a player only you can see, so you can check your picture, overlays and sound without anyone watching. Test your stream covers it.

Troubleshooting

Can’t reach Pyre

The app shows Can’t reach Pyre with Retry when it cannot load Pyre at all. Under the message it prints the reason Android gave, such as net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED or an HTTP error. Include it, or a screenshot, when you ask for help, because it tells us what went wrong.

Your PC is already live in Cloud Studio

Only one device can send to Cloud Studio at a time. If your PC (or another device) is already sending when you press Go Live, the phone asks first: Your PC is already live in Cloud Studio, with Only one device can send to Cloud Studio at a time. Press Take over from my phone to make the phone the camera, or Cancel.

It works the other way round too. If your PC takes over while the phone is live, the phone stops sending and tells you: Your PC took over Cloud Studio. Your phone stopped sending.

Cloud Studio takes a while to start

Starting Cloud Studio… (this can take a minute) means exactly that. When no cloud machine is already warm for you, one has to start, and that can take a minute or so. Keep the app open, or press Cancel to stop waiting. If no machine is free at all, the app says No cloud GPUs are available right now. Try again in a few minutes, or switch Studio to Local/Off.

Something else

The setup card says Your PC and you meant to go without it. Your Cloud relay is off. Tap the route line and change how you go live.
There is no Scenes button. Your setup has no scenes: Phone straight to your platforms sends the camera as it is.
The shape will not change. You are live, or Cloud Studio is chosen, which is 16:9 only.
Where did the per-platform viewers and the battery go? Tap the signal pill. Both are in Stream health.
Viewers hear nothing. You may have muted before going live. Check the mic meter and press Mute.