Connect a wireless action camera
Your phone is not the only camera you can go live with. If you have an action camera that can push a wireless stream, the app can take it in and send it straight out, without re-encoding it on the way. Your phone stays in your pocket doing the bonding while the camera does the filming.
When to use a camera instead of the phone
The phone camera is the fastest way to go live and it suits anything where you are talking to chat. A wireless action camera earns its place when the camera needs to be somewhere your phone cannot go: mounted on a helmet, clamped to a handlebar, stuck to a car, or out in weather you would rather not hand your phone to.
The phone still does the work. It takes the camera’s stream in, bonds every connection it has, and sends the result out. It just stops being the thing pointed at the world.
Set it up
Link where you are going live
If you have not already, sign in at my.ssirl.com and add a destination for your platform. You only do this once. The SSIRL Cloud subscription that covers this is £50 a month and includes the cloud, your overlays and the restream to your platform.
Choose the camera source in the app
Open Super Simple IRL and switch from the phone camera to the wireless camera path. The app starts listening for an incoming stream and shows you the address to send it to.
Point your camera at the app
In your camera’s own live streaming settings, set it to stream over RTMP to the address the app is showing. Every camera words this differently, so look for RTMP, custom server, or custom stream destination.
Check the readout
When the camera connects you will see its picture along with signal quality, bitrate and frame rate. Give it a few seconds to settle before you judge it.
Go live
Once the incoming stream looks healthy, pick your destination and go. The camera’s video is passed straight through, so what you see is what your viewers get.
Getting a good result
Keep the camera and phone close
The camera reaches the app over your local wireless connection, so distance and obstacles between the two matter. Camera on your helmet and phone in your jacket is fine. Camera on a drone half a mile away is not.
Match the camera’s settings to your route
Set the camera’s own bitrate and resolution sensibly for where you are going, because the app sends on what it is given. A camera pushing far more than your connection can carry will not magically fit down the pipe.
Watch both batteries
You now have two devices to keep alive, and the camera usually dies first. A small power bank covers both, and it is the one accessory worth carrying for a long stream.
If the camera will not connect
Almost every failure here is one of three things: the camera is on a different network to the phone, the address was typed with a character missing, or the camera’s own streaming mode was never switched on. Check those in that order.
If the picture arrives but looks poor, the problem is upstream of the app: the camera’s own bitrate or its wireless link to the phone. The readout tells you which, because a struggling wireless link shows up as an unstable incoming bitrate rather than a steady low one.
Frequently asked questions
Which cameras work?
Any camera that can push a wireless RTMP stream to an address you give it. GoPro and DJI models with live streaming are the common ones, but the app does not care about the brand, only the protocol.
Does the app re-encode my camera's video?
No. The incoming stream is repackaged and sent on as it is, so you keep the quality your camera produced and the phone does less work.
How do I know the camera is connected before I go live?
The app shows the incoming picture along with its signal quality, bitrate and frame rate, so you can see the camera is really there and really healthy before anything goes out.
Can I still use my phone camera?
Yes. The two ways in are separate. Use whichever suits the stream, and use the phone camera when you want to be on screen yourself. See going live from your phone camera.