Controlling OBS from your iPad
«Control OBS from my iPad» is really two different wishes, and mixing them up is why the tool you pick ends up disappointing. Here they are separated, with what each one costs.
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Two different things with the same name
When someone looks up how to control OBS from an iPad, they almost always want one of two things. They sound alike and they are not the same.
Running the scene. Cutting from camera to gameplay, dropping the interstitial, muting the mic, starting the recording. These are OBS actions: they exist in its interface and can be triggered from outside.
Running the content. Deciding what appears inside a scene: this post now, this clip next, this photo while you talk. That doesn’t live in OBS. It lives in browser tabs, in desktop folders and in the head of whoever is presenting.
On a reaction or commentary stream, 90 % of what you do is the second one. And that is exactly what a remote control tool doesn’t fix: you can switch scenes from the iPad with one finger, and the post you meant to show is still in a tab on the computer you now have to go hunting through, live.
Why that matters more than it sounds
Hunting for content on air has a cost you don’t see until it happens.
- Everyone watches. If the scene captures your screen, your audience opens the tabs with you. And sometimes sees one they shouldn’t.
- It happens in silence. While you’re searching, you’re not talking. Ten seconds of silence on a stream is a long time.
- It’s decided in a hurry. What you end up showing is what you found fast, not what you meant to show.
So the useful question isn’t “how do I switch scenes from my iPad?” but “how do I make sure what I’m going to show is decided before I start, and goes out without anyone watching me look for it?”
The window route
There’s a way to solve this that needs no plugins and that OBS has always supported: window capture.
The idea is simple. A program on your computer opens a borderless window and paints whatever needs showing in it. In OBS you create a window capture source, pick it once and forget about it. From then on, changing what’s seen means changing what that window paints; the OBS scene is never touched.
What that buys you:
- OBS never finds out. Your setup stays exactly as it is. No rebuilding scenes, no plugins that break with the next version.
- The controls aren’t where the broadcast is. Searching and choosing happen on the iPad. What gets captured is the window, and the window only shows what you already decided to air.
- You can have more than one. A public window for your audience, a private one for you, another with the rundown to read from. Each is a separate source in OBS, and only the public one goes into the scene you broadcast.
This is the route Inessa takes: the iPad commands and the Mac opens the windows. They pair with a six-digit code on your local network, with no accounts and no services in between.
The browser route, if you broadcast from a PC
That window has to be opened by a computer, and if yours is a Windows PC the route above doesn’t apply. There’s another that works just as well: Browser Source.
OBS can put any web page into a scene. If the control room serves an address on your local network, you paste that address into a browser source and the PC becomes another output. No Mac in the middle, and nothing to install on the PC beyond OBS.
There’s a separate guide on this in going live on a PC with Browser Source.
The thing to measure once
If you have more than one output — the public one, your monitor, the prompter — you will eventually notice they don’t all change at the same instant. It isn’t a fault: each path has its own delay, and a browser on another device takes slightly longer than a local window.
It’s worth measuring once and letting the fast outputs wait for the slowest. With one exception, and it matters: the button that kills everything waits for nobody. If something has to be covered, it gets covered now.
In short
- Controlling OBS and controlling what you air are two different problems.
- The first needs plugins or websocket; the second doesn’t.
- Window capture solves the second without touching your scene, and Browser Source does the same when you broadcast from a PC.
- With several outputs, measure the delay once and compensate. Except for the kill switch.
Frequently asked questions
Can I switch OBS scenes from an iPad?
Yes, with a remote control tool that talks to OBS. That is running the scene: cutting to camera, dropping the interstitial, muting the mic. It is a different job from deciding what content appears inside a scene, which is where the time actually goes during a reaction stream.
Do I need to install an OBS plugin?
To run the scene, usually yes, or at least to turn on the websocket server. To run the content, nothing: if what goes out is a window on your computer, OBS already knows how to capture windows out of the box.
What if I broadcast from a PC?
Then the window route doesn't apply, because that window is opened by a Mac. The browser route does: a Browser Source pointed at an address on your local network. It works just as well and doesn't care about the operating system.
How much delay does airing from another device add?
It depends on your network, but on a decent local one we're talking milliseconds, not seconds. What is worth doing is measuring it once and compensating, because the problem isn't the delay itself: it's two outputs changing at different moments.
Does the iPad have to be on the same network as the computer?
Yes. All of this happens inside your local network, without going through the internet. That's what makes it fast, and what stops it depending on a third-party service being up on the night of your stream.