Video Calls with Twilio in React Native

In this article, we will build a video chat application with the help of Twilio and React Native. We will walk through the prerequisites, building the UI in React Native and Twilio, joining a video chat room, and leaving a video chat room.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, let's make sure we have the following items to get our application up and running:

• Node.js
• Expo CLI
• React Native CLI
• Twilio Account

Building the Video Chat UI in React Native & Twilio

The Twilio Programmable Video SDK allows us to create a video chat application with React Native. We will create a simple video chat application with a few components.

First, we need to install the Twilio Programmable Video SDK for React Native. To do this, we can use npm:

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

Next, we need to register the Twilio SDK with our React Native application. To do this, we need to add the following code to our index.js file:

import { TwilioVideo } from 'react-native-twilio-video-webrtc';

TwilioVideo.register({
  'twilio-video': {
    debug: true,
  },
});

Now that we have registered the Twilio SDK, we can create our UI components. We will create a simple video chat view with two buttons - one to join a video chat room, and one to leave a video chat room.

The following code snippet shows the basic structure of our video chat view:

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import {
  View,
  Text,
  Button,
} from 'react-native';

// Import Twilio Programmable Video
import { TwilioVideo } from 'react-native-twilio-video-webrtc';

const VideoChatView = () => {
  const [isInRoom, setIsInRoom] = useState(false);
  
  return (
    <View>
      {!isInRoom && (
        <Button
          title="Join Room"
          onPress={() => {
            // Join Room Logic Here
          }}
        />
      )}
      {isInRoom && (
        <Button
          title="Leave Room"
          onPress={() => {
            // Leave Room Logic Here
          }}
        />
      )}
    </View>
  );
};

export default VideoChatView;

Joining a Video Chat Room

Now that we have our UI components set up, we can start implementing the logic to join a video chat room. To join a video chat room, we need to use the TwilioVideo.connect method and pass in our access token.

The following code snippet shows how to join a video chat room:

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import {
  View,
  Text,
  Button,
} from 'react-native';

// Import Twilio Programmable Video
import { TwilioVideo } from 'react-native-twilio-video-webrtc';

const VideoChatView = () => {
  const [isInRoom, setIsInRoom] = useState(false);
  
  const joinRoom = async () => {
    // Get access token from your server
    const accessToken = await fetch('/accessToken');

    // Join the video chat room
    const room = await TwilioVideo.connect(accessToken, {
      roomName: 'my-room',
    });

    // Set the isInRoom state to true
    setIsInRoom(true);
  };
  
  return (
    <View>
      {!isInRoom && (
        <Button
          title="Join Room"
          onPress={joinRoom}
        />
      )}
      {isInRoom && (
        <Button
          title="Leave Room"
          onPress={() => {
            // Leave Room Logic Here
          }}
        />
      )}
    </View>
  );
};

export default VideoChatView;

Leaving a Video Chat Room

Once we are in a video chat room, we need to be able to leave the room. To do this, we can use the TwilioVideo.disconnect method.

The following code snippet shows how to leave a video chat room:

import React, { useState } from 'react';
import {
  View,
  Text,
  Button,
} from 'react-native';

// Import Twilio Programmable Video
import { TwilioVideo } from 'react-native-twilio-video-webrtc';

const VideoChatView = () => {
  const [isInRoom, setIsInRoom] = useState(false);
  
  const leaveRoom = async () => {
    // Leave the video chat room
    await TwilioVideo.disconnect();

    // Set the isInRoom state to false
    setIsInRoom(false);
  };
  
  return (
    <View>
      {!isInRoom && (
        <Button
          title="Join Room"
          onPress={() => {
            // Join Room Logic Here
          }}
        />
      )}
      {isInRoom && (
        <Button
          title="Leave Room"
          onPress={leaveRoom}
        />
      )}
    </View>
  );
};

export default VideoChatView;

Conclusion

In this article, we have created a simple video chat application with React Native and Twilio. We have walked through the prerequisites, building the UI in React Native and Twilio, joining a video chat room, and leaving a video chat room.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below.