Live Mode¶

Live Mode is the fastest way to listen through the phone microphone and review detections as they appear in real time.

How to Open It¶

From the Home screen, tap the Live Mode card with the icon.

Android only. A home-screen widget starts listening in a single tap, without opening the app and navigating in first — useful when you hear something you want identified before it stops calling.

Add it the way you add any widget: press and hold an empty spot on the home screen, tap Widgets, find BirdNET Live, and drag out one of the two tiles.

Quick Listen (2×1) — icon with a Start Listening label
Quick Listen (compact) (1×1) — icon only

Both do the same thing. Tapping either one opens Live Mode and begins listening straight away, whatever the Auto-start recording setting is set to. The widget does not change that setting.

If Live Mode is already open, the widget returns to that same screen instead of rebuilding it. A running or paused Session continues unchanged; if it is stopped, listening starts on the existing screen.

Quick Listen never replaces another running mode. If a Point Count, Survey, File Analysis, or ARU Mode Session is running or starting, the app comes to the foreground and asks you to stop that Session first. Its screen and work remain accessible and are not interrupted.

Top Bar¶

The top bar contains three elements:

— leave Live Mode
center status text — Initializing, Loading model, Ready, Identifying species, Paused, or Error
— open the Live-specific Settings view

Main Action Button¶

The large circular button at the bottom center changes state:

— start listening
— stop the active session
— resume from a paused-ready state

What You See While Listening¶

Spectrogram¶

The spectrogram scrolls continuously while capture is active. It shows frequency content over time, using the color map, FFT size, frequency range, and duration configured in Settings.

Detection list¶

Recent detections appear below the spectrogram. Each row can show:

species image
common name
optional scientific name
confidence value

Tap a species row to open the species details overlay.

Session info bar¶

The compact info line under the spectrogram summarizes the current session, for example:

current detections shown now
unique species count (spp)
total detections (det)
elapsed duration
estimated recording size when recording is enabled

Recording Behavior¶

Recording is controlled in Settings.

Full records the whole session.
Detections only records clips around detections.
Off disables recording.

When you stop Live Mode, BirdNET Live saves the session and opens Session Review.