How to Build a React Native Video Call App

Looking to build a video chat app using React Native? With its cross-platform capabilities, React Native is an excellent choice for creating high-quality video chat apps that work seamlessly across different devices. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of building a React Native video call app from start to finish with ZEGOCLOUD UIKits. Get ready to learn how to create a top-notch video chat app!

Make You React Native Video Calling App-building Easier

ZEGOCLOUD is a video communication platform that provides a fully customized video chat API for developers to integrate video call functionality into their React Native applications. Developers can easily build cross-platform video communication apps for iOS and Android. It provides pre-built UIKits to its users for effective building, which allows developers to make their app development easier and faster within a few minutes.

As you have assessed the need to create a video call app for your system, taking ZEGOCLOUD’s help is effective. Using React native UIKits for video communication would simplify the complete design. Rather than hiring individuals, this turns out to be the best way to execute the process in no time.

When Do You Need UIKits for Video Chat with React Native

The benefits of using UIKits cannot be overstated. There is definitely no doubt that it is the best video call SDK out there. It is mighty for many reasons.

1. Build apps faster and easier.

This is one of the primary reasons for the development of UIKits. It lets you get your video call apps up and running with a few lines of code. You don’t have to worry about the core implementation, as everything is taken care of behind the scenes. UIKitsalso supports many frameworks, so you don’t have to learn any frameworks to use them. For instance, we will implement a video call feature using React Native video SDK. If you are unfamiliar with React Native, you can use other development tools such as Flutter or Web.

2. Customize the UI and features as needed.

UIKits is highly customizable, unlike other UIKit tools out there. You can easily customize the look and improve the features of your video call app as per your needs by simply tweaking the code. There’s no doubt that the UIKits SDK has all the functionality you could ever need in a call app.

Apart from the two features mentioned above, below are some powerful features that UIKits SDK offers out of the box:

Ready-to-use 1-on-1/group calls
Customizable UI styles
Real-time sound waves display
Device management
Switch views during a 1-on-1 call.
Extendable menu bar
Participant list

As shown in the figure, React Native UIKit SDK from ZEGOCLOUD is responsible for processing audio and video calls and the logic related to text chat. Include:

UI and interaction of the calling module
call status management
Audio and video data transmission

You only need to implement business-related logic. For example:

User login registration
Friends List Management
Call billing recharge

Preparation

A ZEGOCLOUD developer account–Sign up
React Native 0.60.0 or later
Basic understanding of React Native development

Steps to Implement Video Call for React Native App

1. Create Project

First, You need to run the following code to create a new project.

npx react-native init call

2. Add React Native UIKit SDK dependencies

Next, you need to open the package.json file in the root directory and add the React Native UIKit SDK dependencies.

"@react-navigation/native": "^6.0.13",
"@react-navigation/native-stack": "^6.9.1",
"@zegocloud/zego-uikit-prebuilt-call-rn": "^1.2.1",
"@zegocloud/zego-uikit-rn": "^1.2.0",
"react-delegate-component": "^1.0.0",
"react-native-gesture-handler": "^2.8.0",
"react-native-safe-area-context": "^4.4.1",
"react-native-screens": "^3.18.2",
"react-navigation": "^4.4.4",
"zego-express-engine-reactnative": "^0.21.0"

3. Add a call button

import { NavigationContainer, useNavigation} from '@react-navigation/native';
import React from "react";
import { Button, View} from 'react-native'
import { createNativeStackNavigator } from '@react-navigation/native-stack';

const Stack = createNativeStackNavigator();
export default function App() {
  return (
    <NavigationContainer>
      <Stack.Navigator initialRouteName="HomePage">
        <Stack.Screen name="HomePage" component={HomePage} />
      </Stack.Navigator>
    </NavigationContainer>
  );
}

function HomePage(props) {
    const navigation = useNavigation();
    return (
        <View style={{flex: 1,alignItems: 'center',justifyContent: 'space-around'}}>
            <Button title="Call" onPress={() => { navigation.navigate('CallPage') }} />
        </View>
    )
}

4. Add Video Call page

Use ZegoUIKitPrebuiltCall to easily build a Call page

import ZegoUIKitPrebuiltCall, {GROUP_VOICE_CALL_CONFIG} from '@zegocloud/zego-uikit-prebuilt-call-rn';
function CallPage(props) {
  randomUserID = String(Math.floor(Math.random() * 100000))
  return (
      <View style={{flex: 1}}>
          <ZegoUIKitPrebuiltCall
            appID={1484647939}
            appSign='Your App Sign'
            userID={randomUserID}
            userName={'user_'+randomUserID}

            config={{
              ...GROUP_VOICE_CALL_CONFIG,
              onHangUp: () => {props.navigation.navigate('HomePage')},
            }}
          />
      </View>
  )
}

Now, you can make a new call by navigating to this CallPage.

5. Add Device permission

Android:

Open the my_project/android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml file and add the permission:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WAKE_LOCK" />

Open the my_project/android/app/proguard-rules.pro file and add the following:

-keep class **.zego.**  { *; }

iOS:

Open the my_project/ios/my_project/Info.plist file and add the following:

<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
<string>We need to use the camera</string>
<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>We need to use the microphone</string>

Run a demo

Thanks to a rising need for more dependable and dynamic communication, the growth of video streaming apps don’t appear to be slowing down. As a result, plenty of businesses concentrated on creating social apps, video conferencing, and video calling.

We have you covered if you want to enter the video conferencing market, whether you want to start out small by integrating one of our chat widgets or go all in with one of our SDKs.

You can download the sample demo source code of this article.

Conclusion

In summary, the best way to create a video call app is with ZEGOCLOUD. However, for enhanced viewing aesthetics, the need for a complete UIKit can make things easier. For this, ZEGOCLOUD provides a complete react native UIKit to utilize. While it saves time, it can be cost-effective for the users in many ways.

Instead of hiring a massive team of developers, using ZEGOCLOUD can be effective for you in all ways. Furthermore, the results would conclude in better speeds with a quality that will surpass expectations.