Twilio Video (WebRTC) for React Native

[!NOTE]
October 21 2024: Good news! Twilio just announced Twilio Video service is here to stay, they are reversing the deprecation decision. Here's their official announcement..

If you or your company need React Native support, contact me gaston@gastonmorixe.com. We have premium react native features like PiP support, Live Activities, Typescript, and many more. - Gaston

Platforms:

• iOS
• Android

People using a version < 1.0.1 please move to 1.0.1 since the project changed a lot internally to support the stable TwilioVideo version.

Installation

• react-native >= 0.40.0: install react-native-twilio-video-webrtc@1.0.1
• react-native < 0.40.0: install react-native-twilio-video-webrtc@1.0.0

Install Node Package

Option A: yarn

1yarn add react-native-twilio-video-webrtc

Option B: npm

1npm install react-native-twilio-video-webrtc

Usage with Expo

To use this library with Expo we recommend using our config plugin that you can configure like the following example:

1{
2  "name": "my app",
3  "plugins": [
4    [
5      "react-native-twilio-video-webrtc",
6      {
7        "cameraPermission": "Allow $(PRODUCT_NAME) to access your camera",
8        "microphonePermission": "Allow $(PRODUCT_NAME) to access your microphone"
9      }
10    ]
11  ]
12}

Also you will need to install expo-build-properties package:

1npx expo install expo-build-properties

Expo Config Plugin Props

The plugin support the following properties:

• cameraPermission: Specifies the text to show when requesting the camera permission to the user.

• microphonePermission: Specifies the text to show when requesting the microphone permission to the user.

iOS

Option A: Install with CocoaPods (recommended)

1. Add this package to your Podfile

1pod 'react-native-twilio-video-webrtc', path: '../node_modules/react-native-twilio-video-webrtc'

Note that this will automatically pull in the appropriate version of the underlying TwilioVideo pod.

2. Install Pods with

1pod install

Option B: Install without CocoaPods (manual approach)

1. Add the Twilio dependency to your Podfile

1pod 'TwilioVideo'

2. Install Pods with

1pod install

3. Add the XCode project to your own XCode project's Libraries directory from

node_modules/react-native-twilio-video-webrtc/ios/RNTwilioVideoWebRTC.xcodeproj

4. Add libRNTwilioVideoWebRTC.a to your XCode project target's Linked Frameworks and Libraries

5. Update Build Settings

Find Search Paths and add $(SRCROOT)/../node_modules/react-native-twilio-video-webrtc/ios with recursive to Framework Search Paths and Library Search Paths

Post install

Be sure to increment your iOS Deployment Target to at least iOS 11 through XCode and your Podfile contains

platform :ios, '11.0'

Permissions

To enable camera usage and microphone usage you will need to add the following entries to your Info.plist file:

<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
<string>Your message to user when the camera is accessed for the first time</string>
<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>Your message to user when the microphone is accessed for the first time</string>

Known Issues

TwilioVideo version 1.3.8 has the following know issues.

• Participant disconnect event can take up to 120 seconds to occur. Issue 99
• AVPlayer audio content does not mix properly with Room audio. Issue 62

Android

As with iOS, make sure the package is installed:

1yarn add react-native-twilio-video-webrtc

Then add the library to your settings.gradle file:

include ':react-native-twilio-video-webrtc'
project(':react-native-twilio-video-webrtc').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, '../node_modules/react-native-twilio-video-webrtc/android')

And include the library in your dependencies in android/app/build.gradle: (if using gradle 4 or lower, replace implementation with compile below)

dependencies {
    .....
    .....
    .....
    implementation project(':react-native-twilio-video-webrtc')
}

You will also need to update this file so that you compile with java 8 features:

android {
    compileOptions {
        sourceCompatibility 1.8
        targetCompatibility 1.8
    }
}

Now you're ready to load the package in MainApplication.java. In the imports section, add this:

1import com.twiliorn.library.TwilioPackage;

Then update the getPackages() method:

1    protected List<ReactPackage> getPackages() {
2        return Arrays.<ReactPackage>asList(
3            ...
4            new TwilioPackage()
5        );
6    }

Permissions

For most applications, you'll want to add camera and audio permissions to your AndroidManifest.xml file:

1    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
2    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS" />
3    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" />
4    <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" android:required="false" />
5    <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera.autofocus" android:required="false" />
6    <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.microphone" android:required="false" />

Newer versions of Android have a different permissions model. You will need to use the PermissionsAndroid class in react-native in order to request the CAMERA and RECORD_AUDIO permissions.

Additional Tips

Under default settings, the Android build will fail if the total number of symbols exceeds a certain threshold. If you should encounter this issue when adding this library (e.g., if your build fails with com.android.dex.DexIndexOverflowException), you can turn on jumbo mode by editing your app/build.gradle:

android {
  ...
  dexOptions {
    jumboMode true
  }
}

If you are using proguard (very likely), you will also need to ensure that the symbols needed by this library are not stripped. To do that, add these two lines to proguard-rules.pro:

  -keep class com.twilio.** { *; }
  -keep class tvi.webrtc.** { *; }

Docs

You can see the documentation here.

Usage

We have three important components to understand:

1import {
2  TwilioVideo,
3  TwilioVideoLocalView,
4  TwilioVideoParticipantView,
5} from "react-native-twilio-video-webrtc";

• TwilioVideo / is responsible for connecting to rooms, events delivery and camera/audio.
• TwilioVideoLocalView / is responsible local camera feed view
• TwilioVideoParticipantView / is responsible remote peer's camera feed view

Here you can see a complete example of a simple application that uses almost all the apis:

1import React, { Component, useRef } from "react";
2import {
3  TwilioVideoLocalView,
4  TwilioVideoParticipantView,
5  TwilioVideo,
6} from "react-native-twilio-video-webrtc";
7
8const Example = (props) => {
9  const [isAudioEnabled, setIsAudioEnabled] = useState(true);
10  const [isVideoEnabled, setIsVideoEnabled] = useState(true);
11  const [status, setStatus] = useState("disconnected");
12  const [participants, setParticipants] = useState(new Map());
13  const [videoTracks, setVideoTracks] = useState(new Map());
14  const [token, setToken] = useState("");
15  const twilioRef = useRef(null);
16
17  const _onConnectButtonPress = () => {
18    twilioRef.current.connect({ accessToken: token });
19    setStatus("connecting");
20  };
21
22  const _onEndButtonPress = () => {
23    twilioRef.current.disconnect();
24  };
25
26  const _onMuteButtonPress = () => {
27    twilioRef.current
28      .setLocalAudioEnabled(!isAudioEnabled)
29      .then((isEnabled) => setIsAudioEnabled(isEnabled));
30  };
31
32  const _onFlipButtonPress = () => {
33    twilioRef.current.flipCamera();
34  };
35
36  const _onRoomDidConnect = ({ roomName, error }) => {
37    console.log("onRoomDidConnect: ", roomName);
38
39    setStatus("connected");
40  };
41
42  const _onRoomDidDisconnect = ({ roomName, error }) => {
43    console.log("[Disconnect]ERROR: ", error);
44
45    setStatus("disconnected");
46  };
47
48  const _onRoomDidFailToConnect = (error) => {
49    console.log("[FailToConnect]ERROR: ", error);
50
51    setStatus("disconnected");
52  };
53
54  const _onParticipantAddedVideoTrack = ({ participant, track }) => {
55    console.log("onParticipantAddedVideoTrack: ", participant, track);
56
57    setVideoTracks((originalVideoTracks) => {
58      originalVideoTracks.set(track.trackSid, {
59        participantSid: participant.sid,
60        videoTrackSid: track.trackSid,
61      });
62      return new Map(originalVideoTracks);
63    });
64  };
65
66  const _onParticipantRemovedVideoTrack = ({ participant, track }) => {
67    console.log("onParticipantRemovedVideoTrack: ", participant, track);
68
69    setVideoTracks((originalVideoTracks) => {
70      originalVideoTracks.delete(track.trackSid);
71      return new Map(originalVideoTracks);
72    });
73  };
74
75  return (
76    <View style={styles.container}>
77      {status === "disconnected" && (
78        <View>
79          <Text style={styles.welcome}>React Native Twilio Video</Text>
80          <TextInput
81            style={styles.input}
82            autoCapitalize="none"
83            value={token}
84            onChangeText={(text) => setToken(text)}
85          ></TextInput>
86          <Button
87            title="Connect"
88            style={styles.button}
89            onPress={_onConnectButtonPress}
90          ></Button>
91        </View>
92      )}
93
94      {(status === "connected" || status === "connecting") && (
95        <View style={styles.callContainer}>
96          {status === "connected" && (
97            <View style={styles.remoteGrid}>
98              {Array.from(videoTracks, ([trackSid, trackIdentifier]) => {
99                return (
100                  <TwilioVideoParticipantView
101                    style={styles.remoteVideo}
102                    key={trackSid}
103                    trackIdentifier={trackIdentifier}
104                  />
105                );
106              })}
107            </View>
108          )}
109          <View style={styles.optionsContainer}>
110            <TouchableOpacity
111              style={styles.optionButton}
112              onPress={_onEndButtonPress}
113            >
114              <Text style={{ fontSize: 12 }}>End</Text>
115            </TouchableOpacity>
116            <TouchableOpacity
117              style={styles.optionButton}
118              onPress={_onMuteButtonPress}
119            >
120              <Text style={{ fontSize: 12 }}>
121                {isAudioEnabled ? "Mute" : "Unmute"}
122              </Text>
123            </TouchableOpacity>
124            <TouchableOpacity
125              style={styles.optionButton}
126              onPress={_onFlipButtonPress}
127            >
128              <Text style={{ fontSize: 12 }}>Flip</Text>
129            </TouchableOpacity>
130            <TwilioVideoLocalView enabled={true} style={styles.localVideo} />
131          </View>
132        </View>
133      )}
134
135      <TwilioVideo
136        ref={twilioRef}
137        onRoomDidConnect={_onRoomDidConnect}
138        onRoomDidDisconnect={_onRoomDidDisconnect}
139        onRoomDidFailToConnect={_onRoomDidFailToConnect}
140        onParticipantAddedVideoTrack={_onParticipantAddedVideoTrack}
141        onParticipantRemovedVideoTrack={_onParticipantRemovedVideoTrack}
142      />
143    </View>
144  );
145};
146
147AppRegistry.registerComponent("Example", () => Example);

Run the Example Application

To run the example application:

• Move to the Example directory: cd Example
• Install node dependencies: yarn install
• Install objective-c dependencies: cd ios && pod install
• Open the xcworkspace and run the app: open Example.xcworkspace

Migrating from 1.x to 2.x

• Make sure your pod dependencies are updated. If you manually specified a pod version, you'll want to update it as follows:

  s.dependency 'TwilioVideo', '~> 2.2.0'

• Both participants and tracks are uniquely identified by their sid/trackSid field. The trackId field no longer exists and should be replaced by trackSid. Commensurate with this change, participant views now expect participantSid and videoTrackSid keys in the trackIdentity prop (instead of identity and trackId).

• Make sure you're listening to participant events via onParticipant{Added/Removed}VideoTrack rather than onParticipant{Enabled/Disabled}Track.

Contact

• Original Author: Gaston Morixe (@gastonmorixe) gaston@gastonmorixe.com
• Core Contributor: Martín Fernández (@bilby91) fmartin91@gmail.com

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Gaston Morixe gaston@gastonmorixe.com

Full License text you must include and attribute in your project: LICENSE.

Compliance Requirement: All users must include the full text of the MIT License, including the copyright notice and permission notice, in any copies or substantial portions of the Software.

Commercial Use: Commercial entities using this software please ensure compliance with the license terms and proper attribution.

Consequences of Violation: Failure to comply with the MIT License constitutes copyright infringement and may result in legal action, including injunctions and monetary damages. Please ensure to respect the open source project.

For any questions regarding licensing or to request additional permissions, please contact the author.

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