How to access audio buffers in the iOS SDK for VAD and volume detection

LiveKit-Community · January 21, 2026, 1:34pm

This question originally came up in our Slack community and the thread has been consolidated here for long-term reference.

In the iOS SDK, I see the library directly taps into the microphone.

Is there a way to pass a stream of audio buffers to the SDK to be sent to WebRTC?

Or can the SDK feed us the recorded buffers so we can use them for VAD, volume, sound detection, etc.?

LiveKit-Community · January 21, 2026, 1:34pm

Yes, you can capture audio buffers from the microphone. See the Swift SDK documentation:

github.com/livekit/client-sdk-swift

Docs/audio.md

main

# Audio related

## Disabling automatic `AVAudioSession` configuration

By default, the SDK automatically configures the `AVAudioSession`. However, this can interfere with your own configuration or with frameworks like CallKit that configure the AVAudioSession automatically. In such cases, you can disable automatic configuration by the SDK.

```swift
AudioManager.shared.audioSession.isAutomaticConfigurationEnabled = false
```

## Disabling Voice Processing

Apple's voice processing is enabled by default, such as echo cancellation and auto-gain control.

If your app doesn't require voice processing at all, you can disable it entirely:

```swift
try AudioManager.shared.setVoiceProcessingEnabled(false)
```

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How to access audio buffers in the iOS SDK for VAD and volume detection

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