Your iPhone is already the best camera you own. Put it in OBS.
Two OBS sources — a camera and a screen mirror — wired straight to your iPhone or iPad over Wi-Fi or USB. No virtual-camera driver, no RTMP server, no subscription.
The app's Live screen. The red border is the tally light — this source is on air. Every control here is also in your browser on the computer.
Setup
Three steps, about three minutes#
Plugin on the computer, app on the phone, source in OBS. No router configuration, no account.
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Install the OBS plugin#
An installer for Windows and macOS, a tarball for Linux. Adds two sources to your existing OBS.
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Install the iPhone app#
Through TestFlight. Or sideload the unsigned build, or compile it yourself.
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Add the source in OBS#
Sources → + → LensLink Camera, then pick your phone or plug in the cable. Video appears in a second or two.
What you get
A real camera source, not a webcam workaround#
The phone encodes in hardware; the plugin decodes on your GPU and hands OBS the frames. One connection, nothing in between.
Up to 4K at 60 fps#
H.264 or HEVC. The picker only offers combinations your camera actually supports.
Wi-Fi or USB#
USB needs no network, holds the steadiest latency, and charges the phone as it streams. Wi-Fi loses the cable.
Control it from the computer#
Zoom, exposure, manual ISO and shutter, focus, white balance, flashlight, lens, flip — from the phone, a browser panel, or the source properties.
Automatic lip sync#
The plugin measures the real latency and aligns your own microphone to the picture. Settles in about fifteen seconds, then holds.
Screen mirroring#
A second source type mirrors the whole screen with its audio, over iOS's own broadcast. Good for mobile games and app demos.
Remote start#
OBS starts the camera itself, so a mounted phone never comes down. Siri and Shortcuts work too.
Apple Log (beta)#
On Pro iPhones (iOS 17+), stream a flat 10-bit Log image and grade it with OBS's Apply LUT filter. The plugin decodes it faithfully and otherwise leaves the picture alone.
HDR in HLG (beta)#
10-bit HLG over HEVC, on cameras that support it. OBS renders it correctly on SDR and HDR canvases alike.
Virtual green screen (beta)#
The phone paints everything but you solid green before encoding, and the plugin adds a tuned chroma-key filter. With Face ID or LiDAR depth, a distance cutoff drops people walking past behind you.
Every lens, switchable live#
Main, Ultra Wide, Telephoto, Front — switched mid-stream without dropping the OBS source.
GPU decode pipeline (beta)#
Decoded video stays on the graphics card instead of round-tripping through system memory. Lower CPU and latency, most of all at 4K.
Health you can see#
Decoded frame rate, wire bitrate and measured latency — per phone, every second — in OBS's status bar and a dockable panel.
At a glance
Specifications#
| Video | Up to 3840×2160 at 60 fps, H.264 or HEVC. HDR (HLG) and Apple Log in beta. |
| Latency | Roughly 60 ms over USB at 1080p or 4K. Wi-Fi is higher and more variable. |
| Transport | USB or local Wi-Fi. One TCP connection, no cloud relay. |
| Audio | Optional phone mic as the source's audio, a timing reference for lip sync, or system audio with screen mirroring. |
| Computer | OBS Studio 32+ on Windows, macOS or Linux. USB on Windows needs iTunes for Apple's driver. |
| Phone | iPhone or iPad on iOS/iPadOS 15+. |
| Cameras | Several at once: one source per phone, each controlled separately. |
| Price | Free, GPL-2.0-or-later. No account, no watermark, no upgrade tier. |
Documentation
Written to answer the question#
Every screen, setting and failure mode — including the awkward ones, like why iOS mutes DRM audio during a broadcast, and why USB needs iTunes on Windows.