I’ve been trying to figure out how to stream to YouTube from a mobile device for years. For a while, I was using a mobile version of Wirecast, but it was really limited and hardly ever updated (April of 2018 was the last time). And when Wes Fryer brought the imminent shutdown of Hangouts on Air to my attention about a month ago, I felt some further urgency to figure it out.
Ultimately, I wanted to keep streaming to YouTube but not lose the ability to add participants and have a great video “roundtable” experience. Furthermore, though, I wanted to finally have a way to stream a video conference while on mobile. Hangouts on Air never made the jump from Desktop/Laptop-based browsers to mobile, and I think in 2019, going fully mobile is probably the best way to approach video streaming.
After a lot of trial and error, I think I finally figured it out. Now, given my bias toward using iOS devices (iPhone and iPad), this is a solution that currently only works for those. However, I did some preliminary searching and it does look like there are some options for using the YouTube live streaming server (RTMP protocol) on an android device (or chromebook that can run android apps). Someone else would have to verify that, though.
Regardless, here is how you set it up on iOS:
- Go to your Live Dashboard in YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live_dashboard?nv=1
- Scroll down until you see the Server URL and Key and Copy both of those to something you have access to on your iOS device (Google Keep, Apple Notes, etc.)
- Download the EveryCord App from the App Store ($1.99, but it really does an amazing job and, in my opinion, is totally worth it!)
- Open the app and tap the Broadcast section.
- Paste in your Server and Key from your notes document.
- Use the “settings cog” to configure your stream for audio and video.
- Open Control center and long press on the Screen Record icon (Swipe down from top right corner of screen on anything iOS 12 or newer).
- Select EveryCord and make sure you have microphone turned on. Press Start Broadcast – Your Live Stream is Up and Running to Youtube (but, you can go back to your dashboard link to make sure)!
- Open Hangouts Meet (or any other video conferencing system you want to use) and invite your colleagues to join you.
- Use your iPad/iPhone however you want, but remember, if you navigate away from Hangouts Meet, you will only get the audio and not the video sent to YouTube.
I hope that all makes sense. This may be too many steps for some folks, but it actually presents a lot more opportunity than simply having Hangouts on Air limp along any further. I mean, you now can stream anything you want from your mobile device, including a hangouts call from anywhere!
If you are looking for a full tutorial that walks through (or just shows) how to make this all work, here is a live streamed version where I demonstrate how to live stream with this process (how’s that for meta):
