How to stream from iPhone, iPad, or Android to Kodi

Media such as music and videos can be streamed to Kodi from an iOS or Android device basically transforming your Kodi instance into an AirPlay and/or DLNA receiver. Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices rely on Airplay while Android device can leverage the DLNA standard in conjunction with an app. However these features are not enabled within Kodi by default. 

Enabling Airplay and DLNA functionality in Kodi

Enabling support for Airplay and DLNA is fairly straight forward. In the case of Kodi running on Windows you’ll need to download and install Apple’s Bonjour Print Services on the system hosting Kodi. Bonjour is an open-source network service discovery protocol. If iTunes is already installed, chances are you will already have the Bonjour service installed.

Enabling Airplay and DLNA in Kodi

If Kodi is running on a Windows host, Apple’s Bonjour Print Services for Windows must be installed on the system before Airplay can be enabled. Browse to this Apple Knowledge Base Article to download and install the Bonjour Print Services for Windows application. Reboot the host after installation.

Instructions for Kodi 14/15/16 (Helix, Isengard, Jarvis)

  1. Launch Kodi.
  2. Navigate to System → Settings → Services. Note: Some of these settings could be hidden. To resolve this Highlight Settings level and hit enter until it changes to Expert.
  3. Select UPnP / DLNA and enable Share my libraries and enable Allow remote control via UPnP.
  4. Select Webserver and enable Allow remote control via HTTP.
  5. Select Remote control and enable Allow remote control by programs on this system and enable Allow remote control by programs on other systems.
  6. Select Zeroconf and enable Announce services to other systems. If you run into issues enabling this, then Apple’s Bonjour Print Services for Windows isn’t installing or functioning properly.
  7. Select Airplay and enable AirPlay support.

Instructions for Kodi 17 (Estuary Skin)

  1. Launch Kodi.
  2. Navigate to Settings→ Services.
  3. Under General, enable Announce services to other systems.
  4. Select Control and enable Allow remote control via HTTP, enable Allow remote control from applications on this system, and enable Allow remote control from applications on other systems.
  5. Select UPnP / DLNA and enable Share my libraries and enable Allow remote control via UPnP.
  6. Select AirPlay and enable AirPlay support and enable AirPlay Videos and Picture support.

Casting or streaming from iPhone, iPad, or Android devices

Streaming from iPhone and iPad

Streaming from the iPhone or iPad is quite easy. Simply tap the Airplay icon

 on Videos and other sources which support Airplay. Kodi will appear as an Airplay supported device as long as your iOS device is connected to the same network as Kodi (for example, connected to the same WiFi).

But I have some bad news. If you’re using iOS 9 or iOS 10 you will need to deselect the option AirPlay Videos and Picture support. Unfortunately this means Airplay with Kodi is limited to audio only. I’ll update this article once a free or open source solution is available.

Casting from Android

Casting from Android isn’t as straight forward as Airplay. Instead a third-party app is required to cast content from apps such as YouTube or OneDrive.

I recommend the full version of Yatse. It costs a few bucks but it’s well worth it. Yatse is a remote control for Kodi which allows you to navigate Kodi’s menus entirely from your mobile device. It also includes a DLNA server which is used to stream content to Kodi.

  1. From your Android device, download and install Yatse. Then have it upgraded to the premium version. At the time of writing this, there’s a trial period of which you can cast up to five minutes using Yatse which will allow you to try before you buy.
  2. Launch Yatse and add a Kodi system. Yatse should be able to automatically locate any Windows versions of Kodi. If a Kodi system can’t be located, you’ll need to configure the connection from Yatse manually by inputting the IP address of the system which is running Kodi.
  3. Once Yatse is configured, try using the remote to make sure you can successfully control Kodi.
  4. You now have Yatse and it’s included DLNA server installed on your Android mobile device. Yatse uses the Android Share menu within apps for casting. For example, you can now launch YouTube and cast to Kodi by selecting the Share button on a video and then Play on Kodi (or whatever the Kodi’s system hostname is). I’ve also found this to work successfully on a number of other applications such as Photos and OneDrive.

 

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