DEV Community: Charalotte Yog

How To Build WebRTC Video Call with React Native?

Charalotte Yog — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 13:02:02 +0000

React Native: React Native also referred to as RN is an extensively used JavaScript-based mobile app framework. With React native developers can build natively-rendered mobile apps for iOS and Android. Using the same codebase, developers can create an application for various platforms with the help of React Native framework.
React Hooks: The React version 16.8 introduced Hooks as means to add other React features, like lifecycle methods, without writing a class. With Hooks, developers can use functions instead of having to constantly switch between functions, classes, higher-order components, render props, etc.

In this guide, we will be creating the following:

· Video calling application for Android + IOS
· Implementing webrtc video chat using the package “react-native- WebRTC”
· Using Web Sockets for signaling
· Using UI components from ‘react-native-paper”

Steps to Build WebRTC Video Call with React Native:

What is WebRTC?
WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is an open-source project and permits the transmission of audio, video, and data. WebRTC is a technology that offers peer-to-peer communication between web browsers and mobile applications. It also enables users to exchange arbitrary data between browsers without requiring an intermediary.
Steps:

Firstly, you need to set up a cohesive development environment for React Native. Meaning you as a developer will need to install and build your React Native app. Follow here https://reactnative.dev/docs/environment-setup
Successfully run your demo application and then install some React Native Libraries for UI and Navigation
Install the package.json dependencies given below:

"dependencies": {
"@react-native-community/async-storage": "^1.10.0",
"@react-native-community/masked-view": "^0.1.10",
"@react-navigation/native": "^5.2.3",
"@react-navigation/stack": "^5.2.18",
"react": "16.11.0",
"react-native": "0.62.2",
"react-native-gesture-handler": "^1.6.1",
"react-native-incall-manager": "^3.2.7",
"react-native-paper": "^3.9.0",
"react-native-reanimated": "^1.8.0",
"react-native-safe-area-context": "^0.7.3",
"react-native-screens": "^2.7.0",
"react-native-vector-icons": "^6.6.0",
"react-native-webrtc": "^1.75.3" 
}

3.Build Navigation by using react-navigation as noted in the project dependencies list.
App.js

import React from 'react';
import {NavigationContainer} from '@react-navigation/native';
import {createStackNavigator} from '@react-navigation/stack';

import LoginScreen from './screens/LoginScreen';
import CallScreen from './screens/CallScreen';
import {SafeAreaView} from 'react-native-safe-area-context';

const Stack = createStackNavigator();

const App = () => {
  return (
    <NavigationContainer>
    <Stack.Navigator>
        <Stack.Screen
        name="Login"
        component={LoginScreen}
        options={{headerShown: false}}
        />
        <Stack.Screen name="Call" component={CallScreen} />
    </Stack.Navigator>
    </NavigationContainer>
  );
};

export default App;

4.Import Login and Call screens in the App Component and then create Login screen.
LoginScreen.js

import React, {useState} from 'react';
import {View, StyleSheet} from 'react-native';
import {Text} from 'react-native-paper';
import {TextInput} from 'react-native-paper';
import AsyncStorage from '@react-native-community/async-storage';
import {Button} from 'react-native-paper';

export default function LoginScreen(props) {
  const [userId, setUserId] = useState('');
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(false);

  const onLogin = async () => {
    setLoading(true);
    try {
    await AsyncStorage.setItem('userId', userId);
    setLoading(false);
    props.navigation.push('Call');
    } catch (err) {
    console.log('Error', err);
    setLoading(false);
    }
  };

  return (
    <View style={styles.root}>
    <View style={styles.content}>
        <Text style={styles.heading}>Enter your id</Text>
        <TextInput
        label="Your  ID"
        onChangeText={text => setUserId(text)}
        mode="outlined"
        style={styles.input}
        />

        <Button
        mode="contained"
        onPress={onLogin}
        loading={loading}
        style={styles.btn}
        contentStyle={styles.btnContent}
        disabled={userId.length === 0}>
        Login
        </Button>
    </View>
    </View>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  root: {
    backgroundColor: '#fff',
    flex: 1,
    // alignItems: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
  },
  content: {
    // alignSelf: 'center',
    paddingHorizontal: 20,
    justifyContent: 'center',
  },
  heading: {
    fontSize: 18,
    marginBottom: 10,
    fontWeight: '600',
  },
  input: {
    height: 60,
    marginBottom: 10,
  },
  btn: {
    height: 60,
    alignItems: 'stretch',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    fontSize: 18,
  },
  btnContent: {
    alignItems: 'center',
    justifyContent: 'center',
    height: 60,
  },
});

In the above file, a unique USER ID will represent this user and can be referred by another connected user, developers may assign a unique id for any of the users at this stage.

THE MAIN CODE FOR IMPLEMENTING WEBRTC:

5.The Call Screen Code:

import React, {useEffect, useState, useCallback} from 'react';
import {View, StyleSheet, Alert} from 'react-native';
import {Text} from 'react-native-paper';
import {Button} from 'react-native-paper';
import AsyncStorage from '@react-native-community/async-storage';
import {TextInput} from 'react-native-paper';

import {useFocusEffect} from '@react-navigation/native';

import InCallManager from 'react-native-incall-manager';

import {
  RTCPeerConnection,
  RTCIceCandidate,
  RTCSessionDescription,
  RTCView,
  MediaStream,
  MediaStreamTrack,
  mediaDevices,
  registerGlobals,
} from 'react-native-webrtc';

export default function CallScreen({navigation, ...props}) {
  let name;
  let connectedUser;
  const [userId, setUserId] = useState('');
  const [socketActive, setSocketActive] = useState(false);
  const [calling, setCalling] = useState(false);
  // Video Scrs
  const [localStream, setLocalStream] = useState({toURL: () => null});
  const [remoteStream, setRemoteStream] = useState({toURL: () => null});
  const [conn, setConn] = useState(new WebSocket('ws://3.20.188.26:8080'));
  const [yourConn, setYourConn] = useState(
    //change the config as you need
    new RTCPeerConnection({
    iceServers: [
        {
        urls: 'stun:stun.l.google.com:19302', 
        }, {
        urls: 'stun:stun1.l.google.com:19302',  
        }, {
        urls: 'stun:stun2.l.google.com:19302',  
        }

    ],
    }),
  );

  const [offer, setOffer] = useState(null);

  const [callToUsername, setCallToUsername] = useState(null);

  useFocusEffect(
    useCallback(() => {
    AsyncStorage.getItem('userId').then(id => {
        console.log(id);
        if (id) {
        setUserId(id);
        } else {
        setUserId('');
        navigation.push('Login');
        }
    });
    }, [userId]),
  );

  useEffect(() => {
    navigation.setOptions({
    title: 'Your ID - ' + userId,
    headerRight: () => (
        <Button mode="text" onPress={onLogout} style={{paddingRight: 10}}>
        Logout
        </Button>
    ),
    });
  }, [userId]);

  /**
   * Calling Stuff
   */

  useEffect(() => {
    if (socketActive && userId.length > 0) {
    try {
        InCallManager.start({media: 'audio'});
        InCallManager.setForceSpeakerphoneOn(true);
        InCallManager.setSpeakerphoneOn(true);
    } catch (err) {
        console.log('InApp Caller ---------------------->', err);
    }

    console.log(InCallManager);

    send({
        type: 'login',
        name: userId,
    });
    }
  }, [socketActive, userId]);

  const onLogin = () => {};

  useEffect(() => {
    /**
    *
    * Sockets Signalling
    */
    conn.onopen = () => {
    console.log('Connected to the signaling server');
    setSocketActive(true);
    };
    //when we got a message from a signaling server
    conn.onmessage = msg => {
    let data;
    if (msg.data === 'Hello world') {
        data = {};
    } else {
        data = JSON.parse(msg.data);
        console.log('Data --------------------->', data);
        switch (data.type) {
        case 'login':
            console.log('Login');
            break;
        //when somebody wants to call us
        case 'offer':
            handleOffer(data.offer, data.name);
            console.log('Offer');
            break;
        case 'answer':
            handleAnswer(data.answer);
            console.log('Answer');
            break;
        //when a remote peer sends an ice candidate to us
        case 'candidate':
            handleCandidate(data.candidate);
            console.log('Candidate');
            break;
        case 'leave':
            handleLeave();
            console.log('Leave');
            break;
        default:
            break;
        }
    }
    };
    conn.onerror = function(err) {
    console.log('Got error', err);
    };
    /**
    * Socjket Signalling Ends
    */

    let isFront = false;
    mediaDevices.enumerateDevices().then(sourceInfos => {
    let videoSourceId;
    for (let i = 0; i < sourceInfos.length; i++) {
        const sourceInfo = sourceInfos[i];
        if (
        sourceInfo.kind == 'videoinput' &&
        sourceInfo.facing == (isFront ? 'front' : 'environment')
        ) {
        videoSourceId = sourceInfo.deviceId;
        }
    }
    mediaDevices
        .getUserMedia({
        audio: true,
          video: {
            mandatory: {
            minWidth: 500, // Provide your own width, height and frame rate here
            minHeight: 300,
            minFrameRate: 30,
            },
            facingMode: isFront ? 'user' : 'environment',
            optional: videoSourceId ? [{sourceId: videoSourceId}] : [],
        },
        })
        .then(stream => {
        // Got stream!
        setLocalStream(stream);

        // setup stream listening
        yourConn.addStream(stream);
        })
        .catch(error => {
        // Log error
        });
    });

    yourConn.onaddstream = event => {
    console.log('On Add Stream', event);
    setRemoteStream(event.stream);
    };

    // Setup ice handling
    yourConn.onicecandidate = event => {
    if (event.candidate) {
        send({
        type: 'candidate',
        candidate: event.candidate,
        });
    }
    };
  }, []);

  const send = message => {
    //attach the other peer username to our messages
    if (connectedUser) {
    message.name = connectedUser;
    console.log('Connected iser in end----------', message);
    }

    conn.send(JSON.stringify(message));
  };

  const onCall = () => {
    setCalling(true);

    connectedUser = callToUsername;
    console.log('Caling to', callToUsername);
    // create an offer

    yourConn.createOffer().then(offer => {
      yourConn.setLocalDescription(offer).then(() => {
        console.log('Sending Ofer');
        console.log(offer);
        send({
        type: 'offer',
        offer: offer,
        });
        // Send pc.localDescription to peer
    });
    });
  };

  //when somebody sends us an offer
  const handleOffer = async (offer, name) => {
    console.log(name + ' is calling you.');

    console.log('Accepting Call===========>', offer);
    connectedUser = name;

    try {
    await yourConn.setRemoteDescription(new RTCSessionDescription(offer));

    const answer = await yourConn.createAnswer();

    await yourConn.setLocalDescription(answer);
    send({
        type: 'answer',
        answer: answer,
    });
    } catch (err) {
    console.log('Offerr Error', err);
    }
  };

  //when we got an answer from a remote user
  const handleAnswer = answer => {
    yourConn.setRemoteDescription(new RTCSessionDescription(answer));
  };

  //when we got an ice candidate from a remote user
  const handleCandidate = candidate => {
    setCalling(false);
    console.log('Candidate ----------------->', candidate);
    yourConn.addIceCandidate(new RTCIceCandidate(candidate));
  };

  //hang up
  const hangUp = () => {
    send({
    type: 'leave',
    });

    handleLeave();
  };

  const handleLeave = () => {
    connectedUser = null;
    setRemoteStream({toURL: () => null});

    yourConn.close();
    // yourConn.onicecandidate = null;
    // yourConn.onaddstream = null;
  };

  const onLogout = () => {
    // hangUp();

    AsyncStorage.removeItem('userId').then(res => {
    navigation.push('Login');
    });
  };

  const acceptCall = async () => {
    console.log('Accepting Call===========>', offer);
    connectedUser = offer.name;

    try {
    await yourConn.setRemoteDescription(new RTCSessionDescription(offer));

    const answer = await yourConn.createAnswer();

    await yourConn.setLocalDescription(answer);

    send({
        type: 'answer',
        answer: answer,
    });
    } catch (err) {
    console.log('Offerr Error', err);
    }
  };
  const rejectCall = async () => {
    send({
    type: 'leave',
    });
    ``;
    setOffer(null);

    handleLeave();
  };

  /**
   * Calling Stuff Ends
   */

  return (
    <View style={styles.root}>
    <View style={styles.inputField}>
        <TextInput
        label="Enter Friends Id"
        mode="outlined"
        style={{marginBottom: 7}}
        onChangeText={text => setCallToUsername(text)}
        />
        <Button
        mode="contained"
        onPress={onCall}
        loading={calling}
        //   style={styles.btn}
        contentStyle={styles.btnContent}
        disabled={!(socketActive && userId.length > 0)}>
        Call
        </Button>
    </View>

    <View style={styles.videoContainer}>
        <View style={[styles.videos, styles.localVideos]}>
        <Text>Your Video</Text>
        <RTCView streamURL={localStream.toURL()} style={styles.localVideo} />
        </View>
        <View style={[styles.videos, styles.remoteVideos]}>
        <Text>Friends Video</Text>
        <RTCView
            streamURL={remoteStream.toURL()}
            style={styles.remoteVideo}
        />
        </View>
    </View>
    </View>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  root: {
    backgroundColor: '#fff',
    flex: 1,
    padding: 20,
  },
  inputField: {
    marginBottom: 10,
    flexDirection: 'column',
  },
  videoContainer: {
    flex: 1,
    minHeight: 450,
  },
  videos: {
    width: '100%',
    flex: 1,
    position: 'relative',
    overflow: 'hidden',

    borderRadius: 6,
  },
  localVideos: {
    height: 100,
    marginBottom: 10,
  },
  remoteVideos: {
    height: 400,
  },
  localVideo: {
    backgroundColor: '#f2f2f2',
    height: '100%',
    width: '100%',
  },
  remoteVideo: {
    backgroundColor: '#f2f2f2',
    height: '100%',
    width: '100%',
  },
});

The Main Parts to Be Addressed in the Above-Mentioned Codes:

settinguserID: the user which is currently logged in
connectedUser: while making a call to another user using his ID this variable is assigned to that users ID
Video/Audio Streams:
localStream: Accessing local video stream of a user using his/her mobile camera
remoteStream: When a call is connected the receiver video stream is added to this stream variable
Please note that to access video streams you need to set some permissions in the Android and iOS files. Check permissions here:
Android — https://github.com/react-native-webrtc/react-native-webrtc/blob/master/Documentation/AndroidInstallation.md
IOS — https://github.com/react-native-webrtc/react-native-webrtc/blob/master/Documentation/iOSInstallation.md
conn: this establishes your WebSocket connection
yourConn: this establishes your RTCPeerConnection which will be further used for setting local/remote descriptions and offers

Socket Events:

onmessage: fires when a message is received
Message Types & Handlers:
Offer: It is simply the process where one user tries to connect with another user. The sender creates and sends an offer, while the receiver acknowledges and receives the offer. This is known as handleOffer.
Candidate: The receiver is referred to as the candidate. The handle candidate fires signaling that the call has been ringing or awaiting an answer.
Answer: The receiver gets an offer that can be accepted, rejected, or stored to address later. An answer can be created for the offer or can reject/leave. If accepted, the offer will be added to the local stream of connections so that the sender will get to see the video stream, create an answer for the same and send it.
Handling Answer: After the receiver sends us an answer, which means the call is accepted now and the sender’s video is visible.
Leave: Call hangUp means end the connected call or reject the incoming offer, then rest all the variables close the RTCPeerConnection.
The Process:
· Login: send message to the socket for login
· Local Stream: get video stream from the local user
· Add Event Listener for ice candidate update
· Event Listener OnTrack triggers when a remote user adds his/her stream to this RTCPeerConnection then we will display it.

Takeaway:

Now that you know how to build webrtc video chat app feature with React Native, you can set the ball rolling! However, if you are finding it hard a simple way is to opt for MirrorFly programmable video call APIs. Not just React Native or WebRTC but with MirrorFly’s overall API implementation, developers can have the ease on concentrating on other elements of app development rather than spending time building everything from starch. To speak with an expert or for a live demo simply follow this link https://www.mirrorfly.com/webrtc-video-chat.php

How to Embed Flutter Video Call App with In-Call Stats Functionality

Charalotte Yog — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 11:42:44 +0000

Flutter is a cross-platform development structure developed by Google that lets a single codebase be used for iOS and Android both. It is always better to communicate face-to-face on a video based call, than on the text messages as it leaves a better impact on the person on the far side. Therefore, the modern day applications are trying to develop next features and approaches to help users to connect with each another. In fact, the mobile apps have now evolved more with a merged voice or video calling office. Adding video call api for android capability to your existing app increases the usability of your app and increases its value.
An API provider, helps you embed your videos to mobile and web using the Flutter SDK. Applying this, you can, enable real-time audio and video calling features, advanced functionalities like screen sharing, audio mixing etc.
In this blog, we will understand how to build a video call application with in-call statistics using Flutter SDK. Flutter SDK can be installed with a plugin from pub.dev to connect people over voice, video etc.While a lot more can be done with this but let us first understand the basics.

Get Started by Creating your Project

Here is the step by step procedure

Create an account by signing up into the API provider’s Dashboard. To set up this project we will work only on the main file. Then start with the running of the Flutter project.flutter create xxx_project
Add the required packages to the pubspec. yaml file, after the project is created. For this, add xxx_rtc_engine, which is a wrapper (building block) for the API provider’s SDK made for Flutter.
Add permission_handler. This lets users plugin their project and assists to check if camera and microphone permissions are granted. It can be used for any other permissions on the device.

Once the above said packages are added, the dependencies looks like this:

dependencies:
flutter:
sdk: flutter
xxx_rtc_engine:
permission_handler:
Once the providerhas introduced into the project, add the imports that you think will be required in the project. Next use the material library from Flutter, which is provided by Flutter for UI.
Subsequent to this, use the async library from Dart as we may need to depend on more methods for calling provider’s SDK and to wait for a response.
We would also need other imports from the API provider and the permissions handler.Three imports will be used by API provider for permissions.
The first is RTC Engine, which will have maximum real time communication functions.
Second is RTC Local View; it has the view of current user’s camera.
Third is RTC Remote View with sight of the other user who has joined the camera.

The uppermost part of the file looks like this:

import 'dart:async';
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:xxx_rtc_engine/rtc_engine.dart';
import 'package:xxx_rtc_engine/rtc_local_view.dart' as RtcLocalView;
import 'package:xxx_rtc_engine/rtc_remote_view.dart' as RtcRemoteView;
import 'package:permission_handler/permission_handler.dart';
Get the appId and the token, this helps to use API provider’s dashboard securely. Here we will use a temporary token for the current project. First, create a project, then go to edit. Look for the appId, and generate a temporary token. For your app, you need to create global variables named ‘appId’ and ‘token’ and customise them to the values saved from API provider.

Remember that this project is explained for reference and development environments and not intended for production environments. Token authentication is suggested, although not compulsory for all RTE apps that are running in production environments.

Start Constructing the App

Having worked on all the preconditions, we can now start with the actual code. To keep everything simple, we will be using one file.Start with a simple but dynamic widget layout that has ‘Scaffold’in the ‘Material App’.

void main() => runApp(HomePage());
class HomePage extends StatefulWidget {
@override
_HomePageState createState() => _HomePageState();
}
class _HomePageState extends State {
@override
void initState() {
// TODO: implement initState
super.initState();
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
home: Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text("xxx Demo"),
),
),
);
}
}

The initState is where the permissions are checked and all the things necessary for the calls to start, are initialised. So initState is an important part of the app. These are the things that occur on app initialization. These can happen at any other time also when you need to use the video call SDK:
· On initialisation, initState requests permissions for the camera and the microphone, if in case it is already invited.
· Communication client is created.
· If there is any event change from the client, a listener is set up.
· Video is enabled for the existing device.
· Channel is joined.

Enabling Device PermissionRequests

Another important aspect of building a working Flutter app is to deal with the permissions. Video calls cannot be made without permission to access the microphone and the camera.

await [Permission.microphone, Permission.camera].request();

We will be using the API provider’s engine to implement all of this logic within the application. To use this engine, create an instance of the engine, and initialize it using the App ID that was created earlier in the API provider’s Console. App ID is set to a variable named as ‘appId’.

RtcEngine engine = await RtcEngine.create(appId);

Next one is main logic inside the app i.e. the event handler that takes care of the events that takes place on the engine. For this the command setEventHandleris called. Through this we can specify what needs to happen on the occurrence of a particular event. App providers have a big array of such events, but this being a simple app, we will use only 4 events.
joinChannelSuccess It gets activated when a current user of the app joins the channel.
userJoined This is activated in the case where a remote user joins the same channel where the current user is there.
userOffline This is activated when a remote user has left the channel that the current user is on.
rtcStats: This is activated every two seconds and it returns the statistics of the call.
For the above four methods, we will assign local variables:

A boolean will inform us if the current user has successfully joined (localUserJoined)
An integer is set for the user ID when the remote user joins the channel.
ID is set back to null when the user leaves the channel.
Local stats variable will be updated every 2 seconds to have fresh information.

engine.setEventHandler(RtcEngineEventHandler(
joinChannelSuccess: (String channel, int uid, int elapsed) {
print('$uid successfully joined channel: $channel ');
setState(() {
setState(() {
});
},
userJoined: (int uid, int elapsed) {
print('remote user $uid joined channel');
setState(() {
_remoteUid = uid;
});
},
userOffline: (int uid, UserOfflineReason reason) {
print('remote user $uid left channel');
setState(() {
_remoteUid = null;
});
},
rtcStats: (stats) {
//updates every two seconds
if (_showStats) {
_stats = stats;
setState(() {});
}
},
));

Lastly, during the initialization, we will enable video on the engine and get the current user to join the channel which will be called the firstchannel. To effectively join the channel we need to pass the token that was created earlier and stored in a variable called token.

await engine.enableVideo();
await engine.joinChannel(token, 'firstchannel', null, 0);

All of these functions cannot be done within the actual initState. So the initStatewould need to call another function because it cannot be non-synchronous. Therefore, another function will be created, which will be called initForXXX. In the initForXXX, we can add all the above code. The part that is outside of our build method looks like this:
bool _localUserJoined = false;
bool _showStats = false;

int _remoteUid;

RtcStats _stats = RtcStats();

@override

void initState() {

super.initState();

initForxxx();

}

Future initForxxx() async {

// retrieve permissions

await [Permission.microphone, Permission.camera].request();

// create the engine for communicating with xxx

RtcEngine engine = await RtcEngine.create(appId);

// set up event handling for the engine

engine.setEventHandler(RtcEngineEventHandler(

joinChannelSuccess: (String channel, int uid, int elapsed) {


  print('$uid successfully joined channel: $channel ');


  setState(() {


    _localUserJoined = true;


});


},


userJoined: (int uid, int elapsed) {


  print('remote user $uid joined channel');


  setState(() {


    _remoteUid = uid;


});


},


userOffline: (int uid, UserOfflineReason reason) {


  print('remote user $uid left channel');


  setState(() {


    _remoteUid = null;


});


},


rtcStats: (stats) {


  //updates every two seconds


if (_showStats) {


    _stats = stats;


    setState(() {});


}


},

));

// enable video

await engine.enableVideo();

await engine.joinChannel(token, 'firstchannel', null, 0);

}

Applying the Codes

Next is the task of displaying the best live video call app and stats to the user and checking how all of this works collectively. UI will be kept minimalistic. Then we will display a simple Stack inside the Scaffold widget. Other users’ live cameras will be placed at the bottom level of the Stack for viewing. The top-left corner has the current user’s camera. For the current user’s video, use RtcLocalView.SurfaceView(). This is retrieved from the import we got during the setting upstage. To display remote users’ videos use RtcRemoteView.SurfaceView(uid: _remoteUid),.
Now, to present the statistics of the call, use the floatingActionButton parameter of the Scaffold. We can either display actual statistics of the call or use the “show stats” button. If the data is null a loading indicator will be shown. The next view will have a column of the stats when the data is available, and there will be a button to move out of this view.
The build function will look like below:

// Create UI with local view and remote view

@override

Widget build(BuildContext context) {

return MaterialApp(

home: Scaffold(


appBar: AppBar(


    title: const Text('Flutter example app'),


),


body: Stack(


    children: [


    Center(


        child: _renderRemoteVideo(),


    ),


    Align(


        alignment: Alignment.topLeft,


        child: Container(


        width: 100,


        height: 100,


        child: Center(


            child: _renderLocalPreview(),


        ),


        ),


    ),


    ],


),


floatingActionButton: _showStats


    ? _statsView()


    : ElevatedButton(


        onPressed: () {


            setState(() {


            _showStats = true;


            });


        },


        child: Text("Show Stats"),


        ),


),

);

}

Widget _statsView() {

return Container(

padding: EdgeInsets.all(20),


color: Colors.white,


child: _stats.cpuAppUsage == null


    ? CircularProgressIndicator()


    : Column(


        mainAxisSize: MainAxisSize.min,


        children: [


        Text("CPU Usage: " + _stats.cpuAppUsage.toString()),


          Text("Duration (seconds): " + _stats.totalDuration.toString()),


        Text("People on call: " + _stats.users.toString()),


        ElevatedButton(


            onPressed: () {


            _showStats = false;


              _stats.cpuAppUsage = null;


            setState(() {});


            },


            child: Text("Close"),


        )


        ],


    ),

);

}

// current user video

Widget _renderLocalPreview() {

if (_localUserJoined) {

return RtcLocalView.SurfaceView();

} else {

return Text(


'Please join channel first',


textAlign: TextAlign.center,


);

}

// remote user video

Widget _renderRemoteVideo() {

if (_remoteUid != null) {

return RtcRemoteView.SurfaceView(uid: _remoteUid);

} else {

return Text(


'Please wait remote user join',


textAlign: TextAlign.center,


);

}

This was the complete working video call app written in Flutter code

Takeaway

API provider’s Flutter plug-ins have made the application in-call statistics video calls much easier in the Flutter app. The above blog helps you build a functional video call app with in-call stats. This can also be used to add to your existing apps.

Peer to Peer Video Chat App With WebRTC

Charalotte Yog — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 11:57:33 +0000

In today's fast-paced environment, digital communications have taken over the whole world. Almost every business is looking forward to building high-performing video communication platforms to keep interactions smooth with their customers and team members. And one of the best technologies that are quite popular for building apps is none other than WebRTC. You must have come across this word several times somewhere or the other. In this article, we shall discuss every important aspect revolving around WebRTC and how it helps develop a Video call sdk . Stay with us and read on!

Meaning of WebRTC

To describe in simple words, WebRTC is an open framework for the web that tends to facilitate real-time communications capabilities in the browser. It enables web applications and sites to stream audio and video calls without the need for an intermediary. Well, the functionalities are not limited to audio and video calls but also involve file exchange, screen sharing, and other relevant online communication essentials. With WebRTC, data transfer becomes super easy and occurs in real-time. You do not require extra plugins or any special software. The main objective of WebRTC is to support real-time P2P video call in case of video chat applications.

The history of WebRTC goes back to 2011 when it was launched. Over the past few years, it has garnered a lot of popularity. In fact, corporate giants like Amazon and Google also implement webRTC in their applications. Let us have a quick look at the most important components of WebRTC:

RTC Peer Connection

The RTC Peer Connection is often described as the core of the WebRTC standard. With this, app users can directly initiate communication with their peers without the requirement of an intermediary server.

Get User Media

It is a component of the WebRTC media capture API and is leveraged to get access to the camera and the microphone connected to the user's device from the browser.

RTC Session Description

This part tends to define one end of the connection and the way it is configured. It consists of a description, type, and the SDP descriptor of the session. The description type indicates what part of the answer negotiation process it describes.

RTC Ice Candidate

This part of the WebRTC API signifies a candidate interactive connectivity establishment configuration that can be utilized to conduct an RTC Peer Connection. It is a technique that helps you establish peer-to-peer video chat connections most efficiently.

How Does a WebRTC Video Call Work?

Do you know when you conduct a best live video call app leveraging Skype, your data is never routed peer to peer? It routes you through a server which may slow down the call in general. Peer to peer is no wonder a better experience. You are not required to go through a server to carry out a video call. Instead, you can directly talk with the other participant. With WebRTC, all-important video and audio data is directly sent between any two computers on the internet. Let's understand how a webRTC peer-to-peer video call works. There are four steps involved. Let's have a look at them one by one.

In the first step, all you need to do is to click on the meeting link that is provided to you by whatever video applications you are leveraging.
The next step involves direct communication with the cloud servers that are used for signaling and setting up each call. Your web browser requests the signaling servers to let you enter the call.
Similarly, the other participant also does the same thing to set up the call at their end. He/She will tell the signaling servers a little bit about themselves and details like where you can find them.
Once the signaling servers have passed the crucial information from the Video participants, the browser can directly connect to every other browser on the call. It allows you to send your audio and video separately to every peer.
The best part about P2P WebRTC is that you are directly connected to the other person you are talking to. This ensures high-quality video calling and super low latency. Moreover, in WebRTC connection, you know for a fact that the video call is secure and nobody else can see them. All the data exchange is completely encrypted and only the sender and receiver have the encryption keys.

Popular Options For WebRTC P2P Platforms

There are multiple P2P communication options in the market. In this section, we are going to discuss some of them and how they can help you establish a video connection. Keep reading!

Discord

Popular video and audio chat platform, Discord, is implemented using WebRTC. The browser app tends to rely on the WebRTC implementation offered by the browser. First, WebRTC tends to rely on the Session Description Protocol to negotiate the video information between the participants. Not only this, WebRTC uses Interactive Connectivity Establishment to figure out the best communication path between the participants. Last but not least, WebRTC also uses Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol for media encryption.

Google Meet

Google Meet is also one of the big names that leverage peer-to-peer WebRTC technology. To connect browsers, webRTC performs five important steps to set up the peer-to-peer connection. First, the signal is processed to remove noise from the video. After that, codec handling is done to compress and decompress the audio and video. In the third step, routing from one peer to another peer through firewalls. After that, user data is encrypted before transmitting across connections. In the end, bandwidth management is done.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger utilizes WebRTC to enable high-quality video chat both in mobile apps and web browsers. Facebook also happens to leverage this technology for its popular features like Facebook Live, VR chat, and others.

Popular Advantages and Disadvantages of WebRTC Peer to Peer Video Connection

Most of the famous browsers including Firefox, Chrome, and Opera already support WebRTC. It allows them to create a real-time free video chat without any need for extra plugins, downloads, or installs. In this article, we are going to discuss some of the best benefits of WebRTC web and mobile video apps. We'll also cover a few disadvantages associated with peer-to-peer connection.

Advantages of P2P Video Chat App

The overall cost of building and maintaining a peer-to-peer WebRTC is very cost-effective.
Another major advantage is that peer-to-peer connection is not dependent on any centralized system. The connected browsers can function independently from each other.
Also, it is super easy to implement a peer-to-peer network. It does not require any special knowledge or skill set.
A WebRTC chat app ensures complete security. As there is only one server involved, no outsider can crash the video meet.

Common Disadvantages

It has limited scalability. The more participants, the greater are the chances of instability.
Sometimes functionalities like file-sharing can pose serious malware threats. You need to be cautious.

Conclusion

We hope our article helped understand the details surrounding peer-to-peer WebRTC video connection. There's no denying that WebRTC video apps have become extremely popular over the past few years. So, what are you waiting for? Start leveraging the power of the WebRTC video chat app today!

CometChat vs CONTUS MirrorFly : A Comparative Study to Build A Live Video Call App!

Charalotte Yog — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 07:08:11 +0000

Are you looking for something reliable, a full featured APIs & SDKs to make your video call app?

Then I must say It’s your time - And you’re at the right place!

I believe that simply having a general understanding about video calling API and SDK providers is not enough, if you are planning to build something like a real-time video call api.

Instead it would be much better, if you perform some comparison study - Not on all, at least on a few of them.

Henceforth, I have posted this article that can assist you with your further research.

In this post, I have taken into consideration some of the best API and SDK providers in the market - CONTUS MirrorFly and CometChat. Moreover, I have put on my research and reviews about these real time video calling API titans. This includes their features and functions, pricing, highlights, and much more.

Let’s get started..!

CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video Call- An Overview

CONTUS MirrorFly is a leading real time communication API and SDK solution which was established in 2008 by CONTUS group of companies. They have started their career with it's brand named as ContusFly, but in the later run in 2019 they have renowned it as "CONTUS MirroFly."

CONTUS MirrorFly provides chat, voice and video call APIs for enterprises and organizations that can be effortlessly integrated into any of their existing or pre-built mobile and web applications. They offer 100% customizable APIs and SDKs with over 150+ chat features and a self-hosting option of on-cloud/on-premises as per the enterprise’s requirements.

With all these enriched features and functionalities, this solution has made its availability to enterprises at one-time license cost.

Now, Let’s talk about CometChat in general.

CometChat Live Video Call- An Overview

CometChat is a popular in-app communication platform with voice, video and text messaging found in 2009 which can get you the fully featured experience once integrated into any 3rd party device. They provide chat, voice and video call APIs, SDKs, and UIs for websites and mobile devices that can easily build any kind of full-fledged chat solution.

CometChat live chat app is based on the SaaS model so it offers its APIs through a monthly subscription plan wherein, you have to pay-as-you-go.

Well, by now you would have obtained some understanding about these API and SDK providers. But, before getting into an in depth feature comparison, let me introduce you to some of the common features that any real-time chat app will have,

Cometchat Live Video Call vs CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video call: Features Comparisons!

However, if we look for the in-app chat providers in the market we can find so many with a variety of outstanding features. But still there are certain features that can be considered as the ground level one, which builds the foundation of any in-app chat software.

Let's have a look at some of them before getting to the real time feature comparison,

One-to-one and group chat

One-to-one and group chat features allows you to connect with a single user or else with a group of users at once any time, anywhere, with no geographical restrictions through text messaging including special features such as file uploading, emojis, contact lists, and much more, to make the conversation more interactive and easy.

Video Conference Calling and Recording

Connecting to multiple users and having a face-to-face interaction is now easy with a video calling software, at once anytime, anywhere. You can experience this with crystal clear high defined video quality wherein, you can also record the sessions and have them stored for your future reference. Among all the enterprises, the E-learning industry uses this feature the most.

Screen Sharing

When it's about engaging with a larger audience through on-going live video conferencing, seminars, or events, this feature enables you to share your entire screen to other participants within the same application. You can also share your documents, images, video/audio files during the video call session.

Live Broadcasting

Now you can broadcast live events, meetings with many interactive tools over a wide range of multiple channels and have more collaboration and engagement. This feature allows you to have real time live video chat app with multiple sharing of files like audio/video files, images, media files - emojis, etc., over any social media network.

End-to-end Encryption

A high-end security over your conversation data is ensured with E2E encryption wherein, the messages, images, and other confidential documents are sealed until it reaches the respective recipient. Moreover, apart from this end-to-end encryption feature, this high-end security protocol also includes profanity, fingerprint security, AES-256, GDPR, HIPAA, SSL, and much more.

Low Latency

With this low latency feature you can experience the best HD quality videos without interruption. It optimizes the computer network to process high volume data with minimal delay. Thus, the broadcaster can relay the live event within a minimal time. Also, makes the broadcaster respond quickly to other viewer’s chat and have unbreakable interaction during the live video call session.

Multi-channel Platform

Enables you to make and receive messages/voice call in the most instant manner with high quality, across any platform, desktop, iOS, Android or carrier network in real time. You can also have unlimited open as well as private channels to get connected and engaged with other global users and share instant updates, images, files, etc.

After having some information about the regular features.

Now, let’s turn our projection over the key comparison of features and functionalities - the ever demanding topic any developer will look out for.

CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video Call App vs. CometChat Live Video Call App: A Head to Toe Highlights

Before getting in, Let’s start by having some insight into these real time chat solution providers in terms of business - as to Why does the business prefer them?

CONTUS MirrorFly In Business Terms

If we approach CONTUS MirrorFly in terms of business - they are the most scalable and reliable real time video calling software of the era that supports any enterprises despite their size. It's features are so flexible that it gets compatible with any third party device easily.

CONTUS MirrorFly aims to connect the maximum of businesses as it's APIs and SDKs are comparatively hassle free in all terms.

Let's have some study on

Some Highlighted features:

1 billion + concurrent user global engagement
End-to-end customization
SIP/VoIP Calling
One-to-one/group Voice/video and Messaging
Voice/Video conferencing & call Recording
High-end Security
trusted by 40+ use cases like healthcare, e-learning, social platforms, e-shopping, and much more.

Pricing : One-time license cost
Clients : cellcard, etisalat, ikonix, repere, MyGate, stc, and much more.

Comet Live Video Call App In Business Terms

When it comes to businesses, Comet live video calling software has also marked its presence by being one among the leading API and SDK providers in the market. As a cloud communication platform software provider, it includes all the real time features to keep the business connected globally.

Comet live video call app provides a chat UI kit with the components that suits all the platforms and can go live easily.

Let's have some study on,

Some Highlighted features :

Audi/Video Conferencing
Chat/Messaging
File SharingTyping indicator
Video broadcasting

Pricing : Free and monthly subscription
Clients : udaan, Calix, nagarro, ENDEAVOR, Swedbank.

Now, the further section moves with more into features and functionalities comparison in real time. Let’s see!

CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video Call vs. CometChat Live Video call : Comparison

This section will let you find the most in depth insight over some of the features comparison of CONTUS MirrorFly and CometChat for a better exposure.

Feature	CONTUS MirrorFly	CometChat
Compatible for iOS, Android & Web Application	✔️	✔️
On-premises/On-cloud Installation	✔️	✔️
Fully featured chat UI	✔️	❌
Highly customizable UI theme	✔️	❌
Multi-language UI	✔️	❌
Open source UI kit	✔️	✔️ Design files for Sketch
1-on-1 chat	✔️	✔️
Group chat	Unlimited Users	Limited Users
Voice chat & Recording	Unlimited Users	Limited Users
Video chat and Recording	Unlimited Users	limited Users
Screen sharing	✔️	✔️
Broadcast message	✔️	✔️
Real-time translation	✔️	✔️
File uploads	✔️	✔️
End-to-End Encryption	✔️	✔️
Push notifications	✔️	✔️
Desktop notifications	✔️	❌
Reply-via-email directly (sync to chat)	✔️	❌
Activity history & dashboard	✔️	✔️
Voice/Video Call Queuing	✔️	❌
Interactive Voice Response	✔️	❌
Read indicator	✔️	✔️
Voice Monitoring and Reporting	✔️	❌
Location sharing	✔️	✔️
Live Broadcasting	✔️	✔️
Authentication Tool	Support Multiple Authentication	Only 2 Authentication

CONTUS MirroFly Live Video Call Or CometChat Live Video Call: What’s Best - Some Pain Points!

Till now the above sections have explained a lot about CONTUS MirrorFly and CometChat with their feature comparison.

But, here comes the most precise section with the PAIN-POINTS that can tell you the most as which one to go for.

This part is not targeting the real time features but they talks about the CORE REASONS that every business looks out for when they want to invest in something bigger like planning to make a video chat app.

So, Let’s start...

High Pricing

CometChat chat is based on SaaS model, so it follows the scenario of monthly subscription wherein the users have to pay for whatever they use, on a monthly basis which is quite expensive when compared to CONTUS MirrorFly's one time license cost feature.

As CONTUS MirrorFly follows the SaaP model, there is no monthly subscription and also the customers can use their chat app with all their desired features throughout life.

Customer Service -

Customer service is one of the most vital needs of any business, so it has to be up to the mark. With CometChat the response for the query is very slow, more or less 2 days to hear back from them, and that too the issue will mostly take time to resolve with no limited timeframe.

Whereas, CONTUS MirroFly ensures the best customer response till the deployment of your chat app. Their skilled developers are available all the time with their supportive hands to get you through the way as soon as possible.

Among some basic features - Push Notification can be Enhanced

Where CometChat live video call app provides more of the addition with push notification, including SMS and desktop notifications with clarity under all circumstances, there CONTUS MirrorFly’s push notifications feature does involve minor glitches when it comes to poor internet connection, they are simple but still be more appropriate if enhanced.

Deployment Issues

CometChat does not follow the delivery methodologies of each framework. For instance, if they have proposed a pre-made visual interface, it will not comply with the flow of the framework. As a result, it takes a lot of time to achieve a perfect outcome.

This is not the case with CONTUS MirroFly as they follow certain special strategical protocols over the deployment process and work accordingly from the beginning with a regular check over every step.

UI Design not upto the Standard

With CometChat, the UI design is not worth it's high pricing. The interface does not seem to be that much user friendly with bugs during the execution, which is not getting fixed easily. Moreover, the system provides a wrong update as it's working on the bugs when it's not.

Here with the same UI design, CONTUS MirrorFly is capable and adaptive to work with any type of tech stack easily as per your business requirement. Also it offers the most user friendly design with your video calling app wherein, the user can have an end-to-end easy navigation and a better understanding of codes even if they don’t have any prior experience on coding.

Anyhow, the above are some of the pain points that clearly give you the idea of which one to go for.

As the above given reviews on how to make a video chat app are depending upon my research, I want you to do some research at your end too considering my post as a supportive document, before making your choice.

But still, if you feel you need some more guidance concerning the same, they just feel free to drop your queries. I will be pleased to guide you with the most.

So, Now it's your time to have a start with your real time video call API & SDK providers research and have a clear set up for your video calling software building before a start.

Looking forward.. Good Luck!

Best Live Video Call App & API Providers for Teams in 2022

Charalotte Yog — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 05:01:54 +0000

In this fast-paced digital world, virtual communication is gaining popularity at a rapid pace. And live video call app have emerged to be the quickest forms of communication. As people love the idea of quick interactions, almost every business is moving towards building an efficient and robust video communication platform to maintain a powerful bond with its customers.

Do you want to beef up your video communication game too? Are you planning to expand your video communication boundaries in the best light? Let us help you with it! In this article, we shall discuss what makes for a perfect live video call app and the best video call API providers in 2021 that can help you build an efficient video call app to ace your communication strategies.

What Describes a Best live video call app?

A good live video call app is far beyond just being a medium for virtual face to face communication. It supports a plethora of advanced video chat features. Some of them include creating a dial-in number or meeting link, adding more participants during the video conversation, carrying out real-time virtual collaborations, and many more.

In addition to that, a decent video call application also provides you with screen share feature, annotation and white boarding, live broadcasting, video call recording, and many others. Video chat apps with such features not only help your business team to ace internal collaborations but also maintain a smooth and transparent communication pattern with your customer.

Best Live Video Call App for Reliable Large Scale Video Calls

When it comes to conducting safe and reliable large-scale video communication, Zoom, a popular video calling app, instantly pops up in the mind. Did you know global downloads of Zoom were recorded to be around 27 million in the 2020 pandemic phase? There are myriad features that make a video calling app such as Zoom successful. One of the top features being the flexible compatibility that makes it easier to operate on all sorts of platforms.

Zoom can be utilized in Windows, iOS, Android, and macOS. Isn't that absolutely amazing? It enables you to conduct one-on-one video calls with no time limitations.

In case of group video chats, around 100 users can participate together. However, there is a time constraint for 40 minutes. But the limitation issue is resolved once you opt for Zoom's paid plan. It then allows you to conduct video calls that can accommodate 1000 people at one time.

Most importantly, Zoom is a highly reliable video calling application. It allows you to continue with your video conversation even if the internet connection is slow. The video quality might not be that good but the video won't stop. Not only this, Zoom comes with many modern day video chat features like the capability to text during video calls, sharing screen, scheduling calls in advance, and many more.

Why live video call app for Google Workspace users are Benefited?

One of the top features of Google Meet, a popular live video call app, is that it can easily integrate with other Google applications. You can create a meeting link in Google Calendar, which you and other participants can visit to instantly connect with each other. You can also join the call directly from your Gmail inbox. During video call conversations on Google Meet, you can easily explore files from Google Drive and share them in the chat. Google Meet can efficiently work with other team solutions like Skype. It also conducts live captioning. You can easily access English for smooth understanding during the call. The tap-sharing features allow for great media sharing. One of the best parts about Google Meet is that it allows you to leverage the Meet Conference Room Devices for full room video chats when you are working from the same location. So, if you're looking forward to efficient and smooth live video experiences, Google Meet can be your go-to video chat solution.

Does Best Live Video Call App with Professional Features are Must?

GoToMeeting is one of the top-grade video call apps for professional usage. It is compatible across all devices and helps create meeting space within minutes. It supports Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. GoToMeeting boasts of a comprehensive suite of modern video calling features.

It allows you to change your audio volume levels during video calls. In addition to that, there are other functionalities such as commuter mode, room launcher, voice commands, cloud recording, and a lot more. One of the best parts about GoToMeeting is that it allows you to create customized meeting links. This is extremely beneficial when you are planning to host a webinar as you can easily invite people from outside your business organization.

How Live Video Call App Works in Virtual Whiteboarding?

If you wish to experience a modern day video call experience, Cisco Webex Meetings should be your go-to video app. You can access some of the most advanced features such as noise removal, gesture recognition, automatic transcription, custom layouts, and much more.

It comes with a virtual whiteboard that consists of various sketching tools that help you present your ideas during a video call. Not only this, all the video call participants can use the whiteboard feature together. So, if you're looking for virtual whiteboarding functionalities, Cisco Webex Meetings can be your go-to solution. It can run on iOS, Windows, Mac, and Android.

Best Video Calling App for Calls from your Team Chat App

Want to ace live video communication for your business interactions? Slack has got your back! Keep your conversations organized and reach the right person at the right time. Slack has a plethora of advanced features such as screen sharing, document sharing, and much more. It effectively runs on Mac, iOS, Windows, Android, and web browsers. However, one thing that you need to keep in mind is that the video calling feature can be utilized from only desktops and not mobile applications.

List of World-class video call app API providers

Crafting a video call app from scratch is not at all an easy task. It involves multiple stages. However, highly advanced video API features can quickly integrate into your web or mobile application for a state-of-the-art video experience. Leveraging video call APIs saves time on building the video app for your business.

Let's take a closer look at some of the best video call API providers that you can consider for your video application.

1.CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video Call

CONTUS MirrorFly is a self-hosted communication solution with complete power-packed video-oriented functionalities. It is also recognized as #1 enterprise chat solution as it is 100% customizable and has feature-rich video calling APIs & SDKs. CONTUS MirrorFly comes with over 150+ video calling features. It provides you with a suite of features such as live video streaming, unlimited video calling, low latency, video recording, and much more. And the most important thing is that it prioritizes privacy. It tends to protect chat privacy via end-to-end encryption. The best part is that it is cross-platform compatible and can run on iOS, Android, and web applications.

2.Twilio Live Video Streaming

Twilio helps you craft real-time video apps. With a set of flexible APIs and SDKs for iOS, Android Twilio enables you to develop the best video chat communication solution for your video app. Also, you get end-to-end encryption to ensure data privacy and security. Its highly advanced and modern video features are almost endless. Some of them being media sharing and control, video recording, and much more.

3.Plivo Live Call App

With advanced features like call storage and video call recording, Plivo can become your modern-age video calling comrade. It functions both on mobile devices and web browsers. Plivo tends to simplify business communication by offering scalable ways to modernize video communications. Plivo is not limited only to videos but also offers enhanced voice call and messaging capabilities.

4.Sendbird Live Video Call API

The best part is that it can run on multiple devices and across various platforms. It allows you to add a subject line, labels, tags, or ticket numbers to any call. Also, it provides these features without any lags. With end to end encryption, this API can provide you with a high amount of security and privacy.

5.PubNub Video Call API

PubNub is an efficient API provider for real-time in-app engagement and is 100% customizable. It provides you with the best in-app engagement experience. PubNub is leveraged by multiple industries for their video calling requirements. Some of them being gaming, telemedicine, Live entertainment, fleet transportation, and many others.

Conclusion

We hope our article helped you gain a lucid understanding of the best kinds of video call applications and the best video API providers that can help build them. A Best live video call app is one of the best ways to interact with your team and customers in today's virtual age. So, what are you waiting for? Plan to build your video call app as soon as possible and stay on top of video communications.

Happy video interaction day to you!

How to Build Your Own Voice Call API in Android?[Update 2022]

Charalotte Yog — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 08:42:09 +0000

Let’s Explore!

Do you desire to build a voice call application in android?

Peeking around but still confused! Come on, Don’t lose hope!

This is your place to explore for the exceptional. Let’s dive deep and know how to build a simple android Voice calling app?

Before getting into this exciting journey, it’s salient to have some understanding about what the Voice Calling API is all about?

What is Voice Call API and How Does it Works?

Well to start with, voice calling api is a tool that is used by the software developers to make and receive phone calls easily. In other words can say that it's the voice API that bridges the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and the applications get connected to the internet.

This API permits the software to be built into any existing application that includes iOS, Android, and web applications, easily.

Moving ahead as to how the task is being performed by this voice calling API. It is much essential to know about VoIP (Voice over internet protocol), to have a better understanding.

VoIP is a feature whose functionality is when added to an application, you can make and receive calls over the internet alone without interfacing with the PSTN.

Voice API has been built for a variety of uses from basic phone to phone calling, app to phone calling, conference calling, and much more. It is mainly to provide the developers a programmatic control over the calls.

Broad Vision on Building a Voice Call API & SDK

As we have already discussed about voice call api, Android places the calls via built-in applications that are easy to make and receive calls anywhere around. Even it allows us to place calls through the app.

While working in the way at the back of the screen everything is about programming. This is called the action intended to proceed further, which is nonetheless ACTION_CALL.

The intent object ACTION_CALL is when used and passed over proper data. It helps to launch the build-in phone call application to make the phone call.

Let's know how?

STEP 1: Action intent to Make a call - To execute this process of calling the action used here is ACTION_CALL. And the syntax used over here to add action call:

Intent myIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CALL); // this is for Action_call

Other than this for the same process you can also make use of ACTION_DIAL,

Intent myDialIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_DIAL); // this is for Action_Dial

STEP 2: Data Intent to Make a call - For instance, if there is a need to make a call let us say -91-1234234679. We need to set the number using setData in tel, this is the URL as been given below:

myIntent.setData(Uri.parse("tel:91-123-456-7890"));

And in case if we want to use take the number from the user, then the getData would be something like the below from the user:

myIntent.setData(Uri.parse("tel:"+text_Phone.getText().toString()));startActivity(myIntent);

Explore Voice Calling APIs Most Common Calling Scenarios

Let's have a look at some of the common scenarios, How does voice call apps use the API and have control over them?

These three scenarios can get the most:

Answer the call
Accommodating a call
Ending a Call

1.Answer the Call

Before making a call from your android mobile you must ensure that there is no call being executed at that particular moment.

This is so as because the telecom subsystem provides certain constraints when it comes to active calls in other apps.

Let's consider the two cases:

I. No other app are actively on call:

Once your App receives a call
Call notification will be sent via addNewIncomingCall(PhoneAccountHandle, Bundle) to the telecom subsystem.
This subsystem will then bind to your app's ConnectionService implementation. With that a new instance of Connection class takes place using onCreateIncomingConnection(PhoneAccountHandle, ConnectionRequest).
Later on this telecom subsystem informs the app and shows the incoming calls to users onShowIncomingCallUi().
Once the user accepts the incoming call, it gets set to setActive(). If not, then get REJECTED with setDisconnected(DisconnectCause) execution, followed by the Destroy() method.

II. Active Calls that other App has can't be kept on Hold:

Sometimes, it does happen that some important call needs to be attended and can't be put on hold. In such cases the things are as follows:

As soon as an incoming call receives a new call over the voice call app.
The notification will be sent to the telecom subsystem as Call addNewIncomingCall(PhoneAccountHandle, Bundle)
This subsystem binds to your app's ConnectionService implementation. It later on requests a new instance over the connecting objects that have been used, onCreateIncomingConnection(PhoneAccountHandle, ConnectionRequest).
Now, it's the telecom subsystem that displays the incoming call on UI.
If the user tends to accept the call, this subsystem calls upon onAnswer() method. Thus, indicates the telecom subsystem as the setted call is as setActive().
If in turn the user rejects the call, this subsystem calls upon the onReject() method. Then passes on the message as REJECTED by setting the call as setDisconnected(DisconnectCause).
And the later will be called as Destroy() method

Now, accommodating a call or placing a call is all about something that we are supposed to handle when the call cannot be connected due to some constraints that are imposed by the telecom framework.

In general, if we want to place a call we must follow the below things:

First must initiate the call via application.
Use the method placeCall(call, bundle) and then intimate the telecom subsystem about the new call. Now the rest of parameter would be as follows:

Here, the Uri parameter represents the address of the callee. For numbers must use tel:
Well, the parameters give information about the application. All this is done by adding the phoneAccountHandle object of the app to EXTRA_PHONE_ACCOUNT_HANDLE extra.
These parameters can also specify if the bundle includes video by executing EXTRA_START_CALL_WITH_VIDEO_STATE .
On the whole, this telecom subsystem binds to the voice call app's ConnectService implementation.

i) If in case the app is unable to call, the subsystem invokes: onCreateOutgoingConnectionFailed(PhoneAccountHandle, ConnectionRequest). It generates a message to the application as the call can't be set.

ii) But if the app is able to make a call, then it will invoke: onCreateOutgoingConnectionFailed(PhoneAccountHandle, ConnectionRequest) specifying the application as the call can't be set at the first place instantly make the update by activating the call, invoke setActive() to inform telecom subsystem about the same.

Once the call get connected, we would need to end the call at some stage, in that place to end the session, we need to do the following,

Call the method setDisconnected(DisconnectCause).
If in case the call gets terminated by the user LOCAL parameter will be executed. Similarly, the parameter REMOTE will be executed on if the call is disconnected by a third party.
Once done the entire process is followed by the parameter destroy().

Steps to Build Your Voice Call API in Android

Step 1 : We have to begin with creating a new project by filling in the details. Then that needs to be opened by activity_main,xml file, and thus defines the layout as given below:

xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
  android:orientation="vertical"    android:layout_width="match_parent"
  android:layout_height="match_parent">
      android:id="@+id/textView2"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
      android:layout_marginLeft="100dp"
      android:layout_marginTop="100dp"
      android:fontFamily="@font/aclonica"
      android:text="DataFlair "
      android:textColor="@color/colorPrimaryDark"
      android:textSize="50dp" />
      android:id="@+id/fstTxt"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:layout_marginLeft="100dp"
      android:layout_marginTop="100dp"
      android:fontFamily="@font/acme"
      android:text="Please Enter the Mobile No"
      android:textColor="#0F8B80"
      android:textSize="20dp" />
      android:id="@+id/mblTxt"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:layout_marginLeft="100dp"
      android:ems="10"
      android:hint="Enter the number here"
      android:textColor="#84E2DB"
      tools:layout_marginTop="20dp">
      android:id="@+id/btnCall"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:layout_marginLeft="150dp"
      android:layout_marginTop="20dp"
      android:text="Dial" />

Step 2: Now this is followed by coding as in mainActivity.java file. Thus follows:

package com.DataFlair.callexample;
import android.Manifest;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.content.pm.PackageManager;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Build;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity;
import androidx.core.app.ActivityCompat;
public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
  private EditText text_Phone;
  private Button b_utton;
  @Override
  protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
      text_Phone = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.mblTxt);
     mybutton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnCall);
     mybutton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
          @Override
          public void onClick(View v) {
              callPhoneNumber();
          }
      });
  }
  @Override
  public void onRequestPermissionsResult(int requestCode, String[] permissions, int[] grantResults) {
      if (requestCode == 101) {
          if (grantResults[0] == PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {
              callPhoneNumber();
          }
      }
  }
  public void callPhoneNumber() {
      try {
          if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT > 22) {
              if (ActivityCompat.checkSelfPermission(this, Manifest.permission.CALL_PHONE) !=PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {
                  ActivityCompat.requestPermissions(MainActivity.this, new String[]{
                  Manifest.permission.CALL_PHONE}, 101);
                  return;
              }
              Intent callIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CALL);
              callIntent.setData(Uri.parse("tel:" + text_Phone.getText().toString()));
              startActivity(callIntent);
          } else {
              Intent callIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CALL);
              callIntent.setData(Uri.parse("tel:" + text_Phone.getText().toString()));
              startActivity(callIntent);
          }
      } catch (Exception ex) {
          ex.printStackTrace();
      }
  }
}

Step 3: This is followed by Manifest.xml file:

 

  uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CALL_PHONE" />
  application
      android:allowBackup="true"
      android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
      android:label="@string/app_name"
      android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
      android:supportsRtl="true"
      android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
      activity android:name=".MainActivity">
          intent-filter
              action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" 
              category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" 
         intent-filter
      activity
      meta-data
          android:name="preloaded_fonts"
          android:resource="@array/preloaded_fonts" 
  application
manifest

Step 4: As the final step, the application needs to be commanded as “run.”

a) The outcome of the application will be somewhat like this

b) Once done, need to enter the phone number

c) As soon as the phone number has been entered, it will ask for the permission to move forward

d) Once, the above steps are completed automatically the call would be placed

Epilogue

Now you must have gotten a better insight about the entire process with a detailed explanation as how to build a voice call API for any Android studio. With this now it's your turn to implement the same and get to explore the outcome with flying colors.

But still, if you think you need some clarification over the same. Let us know in the comment section to guide you further with pleasure!

Code & Image References Taken From:

1. Data Flair.Training

2. C Sharpcorner.com

3. Developer Android.com

4. DBS Website.com

5. Integrate Voice Call API & SDK

Voice Call API - The Key to Business Success in a Global Landscape

Charalotte Yog — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 05:15:38 +0000

Are you looking to build a voice call api platform that can help you interact with your customers in a more personalized way? Do you want to connect with a global audience quickly and easily? If your answer to both these questions is an “yes” then you have landed at the right webpage. This web page will serve as a right cocktail for you if you are looking to build a great web or mobile app for personal and global connectedness.

Once you are finished reading this blog, you will have known how a voice call API when integrated into your app will let you make, receive and monitor your voice calls in a programmed manner. You will have known how a voice call API helps boost business growth.

Voice API Provides for User-Friendly Experience and Scalable Business

1. Increase in Business Engagement Level:

When you build your own voice chat solution with the help of developers, you lend voice-calling capabilities to your web or mobile app for a rich customer experience. If customers would want to interact in their choice of language, they definitely can with the help of a robust voice communication platform that would support many different languages and via text to speech technology.

2. Cost Optimization:

With a voice call API and voice chat sdk you can optimize your business costs in two ways -- One, by automating a voice communication platform, and second, by moving all your communication, say between employer-employee and business-customer, to the cloud.

3. Easy to Scale:

A voice call api and voice chat sdk also lets you connect with carrier networks beyond borders and all around the world thus helping you to scale up in your business.

Voice API Helps You to Stay Ahead in Market Competition:

Number masking Helps in Reducing Unnecessary Revenue-Loss
The in-app voice calls allows you to anonymize the phone numbers of all users so that utmost privacy is maintained. And, while you have the privilege to mask the phone numbers, no outsider can enter the in-app conversation and no insider can engage outside of the in-app voice conversations taking place at any particular point in time.

Higher Operational Efficiency

Next, voice calling api solutions and Voice call sdk helps you eliminate the need for conventional customer call centers and automated voice responses after the press of a phone button. And, this is because you help your customers connect with the right customer care or sales agent by building a flexible and scalable in-voice app. Thus, you can handle more call volumes within a less period of time.

Safe and Secure Login Process

An in-app voice call api integration into your web or mobile app adds an additional layer of security to the app by adding the process of verification to both a sign-up and sign-in process. An OTP in the form of text-to-speech is made available for a secure verification of the customer, thus giving the customers an enhanced user-experience.

Build a Customized Voice Calling App to Grow Your Business

Online Conferencing Advantage

Sharing ideas with a hundred or more than hundred people -- all at the same time is not a dream but a dream come true made possible through an in-app customizable conference calling feature solution. By mere click of a button in your online app, you can join the online conference and save on your travel costs. Instead of traditional audio conferencing, you make use of an integrated voice conference api facility to enable meeting of business stakeholders, employees, and customers in order to have the best meeting outcome.

Call Barging Facility

Call barging is another benefit that you draw by having a customized voice calling feature app. If you want to improve the effectiveness of your call center and deliver 100% customer satisfaction, you can do so by barging into, in other words, listening into and then dropping into the live calls taking place between your caller and sales support agent. An audio calling integration into your app helps in -- better monitoring of the sales calls; faster resolution of customers’ queries; and minimization of call transitions.

Call Forwarding Facility

With an in-app voice API, you also derive the benefit of call forwarding when you can divert any number of calls from your call center to a desired number unconditionally.

IVR Technology

A technology that organizations widely use with the help of voice call sdk providers to increase their operational efficiency, customer loyalty and satisfaction is Interactive Voice Response. IVR provides for high speech recognition in a way that exceeds the traditional practice of speech understanding. For e.g. you can offer your customers the choice of saying more than just ‘Press 1’ or ‘Press 9’. Thus, voice callers can easily find out what they are looking for, when prompted by IVR.

Encrypted Voice Calling Facility

Last but not the least, a customized voice call sdk for Android and web helps in enabling all audio conversations private and secure through an end to end encryption of your voice calling data.

A Voice Chat App Can Help Personalize Conversations Through Embedded Placeholders

Let’s say, you want to build a social media or dating app of your own. Now, it has been noticed that while the users are engaged in some kind of a fun conversation, a live voice chat with the help of live voice/audio call api and voice sdk when embedded as a placeholder in the app keeps the users stay longer than usual. So, build voice chat solutions that can help you personalize your in-app conversations for a higher user-engagement level.

In-app Calls in Web and Mobile Apps Are Safe for Use
Web & in app calls allow you to keep your conversations completely safe and secure. The calls can be made without the use of any phone networks and over VoIP. Web and in-app calls can be easily recorded through a dynamic destination resolving mechanism thus helping you to keep a track of your audio conversations -- conversations that might take place between a sales agent and customer.

Summary

In order to have the best business financial outcome, you need to build the best-in-kind voice chat app that can help you make, receive, and monitor voice calls from around the world. And, in order to build a voice app, you need to integrate voice calling APIs and SDKs into your mobile or web app. Look for those voice api and sdk providers who can help you build a smart in-app calling solution for you to enjoy the benefit of more advanced features and have you scale up to a million users globally.

How Efficient and Productive is Voice Call API & SDK in Business Enterprises

Charalotte Yog — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 16:24:23 +0000

Advancement in technology is something that can make a significant revolution across the world whether could be about real time communication or something else.

The role of voice, video, and real time chat messaging in current businesses has made a significant shift towards the entire situation. This has left a great impact over enterprise businesses allowing them to stay connected.

As per Verizon, every week there are about 800 million wireless calls being made that is double the count made on Mother’s Day, the busiest call day of the year.

This article is going to shed some light on customer experience or the business experience over in-app voice calling.

What is an In-app Voice calling API?

In-app Voice API is a software developer tool that has been used by developers to make and receive phone calls with ease. This voice API also acts like a bridge between the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and applications connecting the internet.

Voice API enables developers to create calls logically that can extend to users on any device, over any network, anywhere around the globe. Even, it allows the developers to add full VoIP functionality to apps so that, can make or receive calls over the internet, without an interruption with the PSTN.

Advantage of a Live Voice Broadcasting API

Today, almost all the businesses are experiencing exciting and practically fine tuned mode of conversation with live voice API. However, experiencing conversation inside one’s own service is something new.

But, still conversational interface has raised as the new edge of opportunity wherein the in-app voice call API is the part of the building block for almost all the scalable services.

Well, you can have a great experience with Live voice call API:

It improves the in-app engagements, simultaneously enhances the joy of personalized work situation
It provides a high-quality, halt-free interactive voice chat across iOS, Android, and web applications
It allows you to add new features like voice effects with 360 degrees surround sound, noise cancellation, and active-speaker recognition

Some of the circumstances where this live voice chat API has made some effect:

1.Social Interaction- Experience an Impactful Conversation with Voice API

When it is about submerging live voice chat into an existing device, it can be kept engrossed for a long duration despite engaging old friends or strangers. Sending live voice messages within an application can have a high rate of engagement.

This live voice SDK can easily add up to one-to-one and group conversations to apps. Here, it moves on well with cross-platforms by connecting building blocks that provide the features like sound effects, voice effects, background music, recording, active-speaker recognition, etc.

2.In-app voice for gaming applications - voice chat enhance the user experience

The gaming application has always been encouraging the user engagement by connecting with people across the board. It allows the player to interact with other players via voice commands. Thus, grabbing the attention of players.

On the other hand, we can say that for players it provides a common platform to share some enjoyable moments, and sometimes even celebrate a victory.

3.Work association - Improves the work efficiency via voice chat API

Voice chat API helps the employees to collaborate during a remote work environment. Moreover, it allows the employees to interact among themselves as well as with the customers via voice calling API. Live audio calling also works as a great option over here, as it allows the team members to join over the social conferencing call conversation.

Incredible Features of Audio Call API: An Exclusive Choice of Business

Generally when it comes to the features of voice API, they vary from basic to extremely rich features. The most common features of call flow starts with the capacity to say strings of text and gather DTMF keyboard input.

These features are mostly used to create outbound calls, managing voice conference calls, and call recording, all this to make the customer experience a responsive outcome.

Let’s have a look at some of the majorly highlighted voice calling APIs feature:

1.One -to-one Voice call

Whenever there needs to be a discussion among two people over voice calling API, they opt for this feature where people can’t see each other but can communicate with any individual around the world.

2.Audio Call Conferencing

It’s where you can experience getting connected with billions of concurrent users at the same time. This feature is used mostly in the use cases such as the gaming industry where the players can have an instant conversation across the board with other players globally.

All this is available with a high level of configurable behavior i.e., can play sound when somebody joins or leaves, defines a length of time and automatically ends the conference when it’s done, mute and unmute or sometimes hold, etc.

3.Streaming with Media

This is an amazing feature that enables the application to go ahead with delivering calls, eventually duplicating them to multiple recipients. To be brief about the concept, the moment when the call get established, the audio calling API
takes the call media and forks it.

With real time voice communication solutions, the call media can be duplicated, analyzed, delivered and returned. Moreover, the second recipient never occupies the call stream, so there is no need to worry about degraded quality or dropped connections.

4.Text to Speech

It is a form of speech amalgamation where the text has been converted into spoken voice output. Although, it’s an accessibility feature for customers with disabilities where the automated calls are made to the customer service system to convey the issues.

However, this option is also utilized by the customers who want to interact with IVR. Most of the programmable voice APIs embody text-to-speech technology for this reason. This feature allows the customer to communicate in several languages.

5.Smart Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

When there is a huge flow of calls, there are chances to miss some of the extra calls. This is the feature that has been established where these extra calls get diverted automatically to the interactive voice response system. This automated voice response is available with many options and interactive capabilities to handle simple customer service tasks without the need for a human representative.

This voice API enable you to build an automated voice response system with some added benefits,

AI technologies
Intelligent call routing
Omnichannel experience
Text-to-speech
Call recording

6.VoIp/SIP Calling

This is to get rid of making calls with limited budget plans to carrier networks. This allows unlimited voice calls across any carrier device quickly and helps making concurrent calls globally.

7.Speech recognition

It allows you to transcript every recorded voice call into text with suitable language structure with AI integration as well as machine intelligence.

Conclusion

However, now you have got some idea about the importance with regards to the features that can have a great impact over any business.

DEV Community: Charalotte Yog

How To Build WebRTC Video Call with React Native?

In this guide, we will be creating the following:

Steps to Build WebRTC Video Call with React Native:

THE MAIN CODE FOR IMPLEMENTING WEBRTC:

The Main Parts to Be Addressed in the Above-Mentioned Codes:

Socket Events:

Takeaway:

How to Embed Flutter Video Call App with In-Call Stats Functionality

Get Started by Creating your Project

Here is the step by step procedure

Start Constructing the App

Enabling Device PermissionRequests

Applying the Codes

Takeaway

Peer to Peer Video Chat App With WebRTC

Meaning of WebRTC

RTC Peer Connection

Get User Media

RTC Session Description

RTC Ice Candidate

How Does a WebRTC Video Call Work?

Popular Options For WebRTC P2P Platforms

Discord

Google Meet

Facebook Messenger

Popular Advantages and Disadvantages of WebRTC Peer to Peer Video Connection

Advantages of P2P Video Chat App

Common Disadvantages

Conclusion

CometChat vs CONTUS MirrorFly : A Comparative Study to Build A Live Video Call App!

CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video Call- An Overview

CometChat Live Video Call- An Overview

Cometchat Live Video Call vs CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video call: Features Comparisons!

One-to-one and group chat

Video Conference Calling and Recording

Screen Sharing

Live Broadcasting

End-to-end Encryption

Low Latency

Multi-channel Platform

CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video Call App vs. CometChat Live Video Call App: A Head to Toe Highlights

CONTUS MirrorFly In Business Terms

Comet Live Video Call App In Business Terms

CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video Call vs. CometChat Live Video call : Comparison

CONTUS MirroFly Live Video Call Or CometChat Live Video Call: What’s Best - Some Pain Points!

High Pricing

Customer Service -

Among some basic features - Push Notification can be Enhanced

Deployment Issues

UI Design not upto the Standard

Best Live Video Call App & API Providers for Teams in 2022

What Describes a Best live video call app?

Best Live Video Call App for Reliable Large Scale Video Calls

Why live video call app for Google Workspace users are Benefited?

Does Best Live Video Call App with Professional Features are Must?

Popular Live Video Call Application for Lightweight Option

How Live Video Call App Works in Virtual Whiteboarding?

Best Video Calling App for Calls from your Team Chat App

List of World-class video call app API providers

1.CONTUS MirrorFly Live Video Call

2.Twilio Live Video Streaming

3.Plivo Live Call App

4.Sendbird Live Video Call API

5.PubNub Video Call API

Conclusion

How to Build Your Own Voice Call API in Android?[Update 2022]

What is Voice Call API and How Does it Works?

Broad Vision on Building a Voice Call API & SDK

Explore Voice Calling APIs Most Common Calling Scenarios

1.Answer the Call

Steps to Build Your Voice Call API in Android

Voice Call API - The Key to Business Success in a Global Landscape

Voice API Provides for User-Friendly Experience and Scalable Business

1. Increase in Business Engagement Level:

2. Cost Optimization:

3. Easy to Scale:

Voice API Helps You to Stay Ahead in Market Competition:

Higher Operational Efficiency

Safe and Secure Login Process