Button deck for iPad and phone

The Button deck turns your iPad or phone into a panel of custom stream controls. It runs in the browser; MonkeyOverlays must stay open on the PC.

Enable and open

1. On the PC, open Integrations → Phone and tablet. Enable Local network and Remote control (control the app from your phone). Set an optional 4–8 digit PIN to protect actions.
2. Enable Button deck. Connect OBS in Integrations to populate audio inputs, scenes and sources.
3. Choose Example deck, or choose 2–8 columns and 1–6 rows and create your buttons. You can have up to 20 pages.
4. Connect the iPad to the same network as the PC. Open the Open on iPad link ending in /deck. You can also scan the Local network QR and tap Button deck on the phone page.
5. In Safari, use Share → Add to Home Screen to launch it full screen. The page requests a screen wake lock where supported. If unavailable, adjust the device’s automatic screen lock.

Design the buttons

Click a cell to create or edit a button. Choose its action, text, original icon, color or image, then Save button. Drag to move; dropping onto another button swaps them. The Cell selector also supports moving with a keyboard. Grid and page changes save immediately; page names save on leaving the field or pressing Enter.

Upload PNG, JPEG, WebP or GIF images up to 2 MB, then select them in the gallery. Deleting an image removes it from every button that uses it. The preview reflects OBS states known to the app; clicking it edits buttons without executing actions.

Shrinking the grid preserves buttons; the change is rejected if they cannot fit. Deleting a page removes its buttons and redirects links to the previous page (or the first). The example deck replaces existing pages after confirmation.

Button types

Action	Configuration
Stream, recording and replay buffer	Toggle, turn on or turn off.
Mute audio	OBS input and mode. Activate mutes; deactivate restores sound.
Volume	OBS input and a step from −10 to −1 or +1 to +10 dB.
Scene	OBS scene to put on air.
Source	Scene, source and mode to show or hide it.
Save clip and instant replay	Require the OBS replay buffer; instant replay uses the PC configuration.
Panic, overlays, director and celebrations	Toggle, activate or deactivate. Panic hides overlays and canvases and mutes their sounds.
Test celebration	Triggers a test.
Hide iRacing’s interface	Toggle, hide or show iRacing’s menus and controls, for a clean view of other drivers or a replay. Needs “Race center: move the camera and the replay” in Options and never acts while you drive. Also in the race center.
Switch page	Opens another deck page on this device only.

The example includes streaming, recording, microphone, music volume, race and garage scenes, clip, replay and panic. Review the inputs and scenes: it uses those available in OBS. Missing ones use example names shown as unavailable until you select real inputs or scenes.

Live operation and safety

Use the bottom tabs or swipe to change pages. The grid swaps rows and columns when you rotate the device to keep buttons square and preserve their order. With many pages, the arrows navigate the tabs without scrolling the screen. Lit buttons reflect active state; dimmed buttons are unavailable. Values such as volume in dB refresh once a second. The top bar shows LIVE, RECORDING, dropped frames, encoder lag, congestion and reconnection alerts.

To stop streaming or recording, hold the button for one second until the ring completes. Releasing early, swiping or leaving the page cancels the press. Other actions take one tap. When the PC connection is lost, controls are disabled and the page retries; actions are never automatically resent.

The iPad sends only the button number and the PIN, if configured. The PC looks up the saved action and applies its permissions. The phone never sends input names, paths or arbitrary commands. It shares the remote control PIN and failed-attempt lockouts. The deck works only on the local network; the public link cannot control the app. Share the local link and QR only with people you trust.

More: Phone and tablet · OBS.