Phone as a Camera
Turn an Android or iPhone into an extra camera angle for the Broadcast console, over Wi-Fi or a USB cable.
RheoCast Camera turns a phone into a camera source: a balcony angle, a close-up on the pulpit, a roving shot from the floor. It sends video to the console over your own network — or straight down a USB cable. Nothing leaves the building and nothing goes through the internet.
Install it on the phone, not on the machine running the service.
Before you start
- Over Wi-Fi, the phone and the console must be on the same network. Guest Wi-Fi usually will not work, because many guest networks isolate devices from each other on purpose.
- 5 GHz Wi-Fi if you have it. A phone camera is a real video stream, and 2.4 GHz shares a crowded band with microwaves, Bluetooth and every neighbouring router.
- Put the phone on power. A camera running for a whole service will not last on battery.
- For a fixed camera position, consider the USB cable instead: it is steadier than any Wi-Fi, and the same cable powers the phone for the whole service.
Pairing
The phone is the one listening and the console dials it, which is why the code is shown on the phone and typed into the computer, rather than the other way round.
- Open RheoCast Camera on the phone. It shows an 8-character code and one or more addresses like
192.168.1.42:17998, each labelled with the road it belongs to — WiFi, USB cable (Android tethering) or Hotspot / USB (iPhone). - In RheoCast, add a Phone Camera source.
- Enter the address for the road you are using, then the code.
That is the whole pairing. Afterwards the console remembers the phone, so on later Sundays it reconnects on its own, so you will not be asked for a code again.
No address shown? The phone has not been given one. Rejoin the Wi-Fi (or turn tethering / the Personal Hotspot on) and the address appears within a few seconds.
Over a USB cable
A cable removes the network from the equation entirely: no congestion, no roaming, and the phone charges while it films. It comfortably carries what Wi-Fi struggles with — on Android over a cable the app steps itself up to 1080p automatically, and drops back to the safer 720p when it next connects over Wi-Fi (choosing a resolution by hand always wins over both).
Android:
- Plug the phone into the computer.
- On the phone: Settings → Hotspot and tethering → USB tethering.
- Type the address labelled USB cable into the console.
That covers Windows with any Android, and a Mac with Android 14 or newer. The one awkward pairing is a Mac with Android 13 or older — macOS cannot join those phones' tether network at all. RheoCast carries its own bridge for exactly this case: enable USB debugging on the phone (Settings → Developer options), plug in, accept the phone's Allow USB debugging prompt, and type 127.0.0.1 as the address. Nothing to install; RheoCast keeps the bridge alive on its own.
iPhone:
- On the phone: Settings → Personal Hotspot, and turn Allow Others to Join on — this is the switch that actually opens the USB network; with it off, the computer sees the phone but never gets an address. Mobile data must be on too.
- Plug in via USB.
- Type the address labelled Hotspot / USB into the console.
One honest limitation: Personal Hotspot is a carrier feature. If that settings screen asks you to set up or contact your carrier, the phone's plan does not include hotspot — and then the cable cannot carry the feed at all on that iPhone; use Wi-Fi.
"Attached" but never connects? On a Mac, System Settings → Network shows the cable as iPhone USB. Yellow Attached means the phone has not admitted the computer yet — turn Allow Others to Join on and it flips to green Connected within seconds, and the console then reaches the phone on its own.
If the cable is knocked out mid-service, plug it back in and the console reconnects on its own — the source shows reconnecting… while it does.
The code changed by itself
After several wrong attempts the phone throws its code away and shows a new one, and says so underneath. That is deliberate: a code that never changed could be guessed at from anywhere on the network. Read the new one and carry on.
While it is running
Tap the picture to focus there — a ring marks the spot, and focus returns to automatic on its own once the scene changes. Double-tap to hide the controls; double-tap again to bring them back. The shot fills the screen so you can frame against exactly what the console is receiving.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tap the picture | Focus and meter at that point |
| Flip | Switches between the back and front camera |
| Torch | The phone's light, for a dark stage |
| Zoom | Slider, up to 8× |
| MJPEG / H.264 | The video format; see below |
A coloured border appears when the console puts this camera on air: red for Program, green for Preview. It is readable across a room, so whoever is holding the phone knows they are live without looking closely.
The desktop can also drive zoom, torch, camera flip and resolution from the source's properties, so an operator at the desk can adjust a phone nobody is standing next to.
MJPEG or H.264
The button switches how the video is compressed. Both are always available and the choice takes effect immediately, mid-stream.
| MJPEG | H.264 | |
|---|---|---|
| Bandwidth | ~15 Mbps | ~4 Mbps |
| Encoding | Software | Hardware |
| Recovering from a dropped frame | Instant | Waits for the next keyframe |
| Delay before the picture appears | None | Slight |
MJPEG is the default, and on a healthy network it is the better one. Every frame stands alone, so a lost frame costs exactly that frame and the picture never smears.
Switch to H.264 when the network is the problem: the picture stuttering, the quality dropping on its own, a crowded room, or a long service where the phone is getting hot. A quarter of the bandwidth is a large difference on a busy 2.4 GHz network.
The measurements above are from a real phone on real footage at 720p, not estimates.
The picture gets softer when the network is busy
That is the app protecting smoothness. When frames start backing up it lowers quality first, then framerate, and recovers slowly once the link is clear. A slightly softer picture is almost invisible on a projector; a stutter every second is not.
If it happens constantly, the network is the thing to fix. Try 5 GHz, move closer to the access point, switch to H.264 — or for a fixed position, run a cable and take the network out of the picture entirely.
Troubleshooting
The console cannot connect. Check the address on the phone still matches. Phones get a new address when they rejoin a network, and the console is dialling the old one. While the console is trying, the source's tile says reconnecting… and its properties show an amber Reconnecting badge — if that badge never turns green, the address is the thing to check.
It connects and then drops. Usually the phone sleeping or the app going to the background. The app keeps the screen awake while it is running, so leave it in front and on power.
The address starts with 169.254. That means the phone did not get a proper address from the router. Rejoin the Wi-Fi.
Nothing appears on the console after pairing. Confirm the phone camera source is actually in the scene you are previewing. Pairing connects the phone, but the source still has to be part of a scene to be seen.
Where it fits
A phone camera is a source like any other. Drag it onto a scene, arrange it in the scene editor, and it can sit alongside a webcam, a screen share or an NDI feed. See The Broadcast Console.