Audio streaming

A remote desktop without sound is a screen recording. Your Mac plays it. Your iPad hears it.

Remio captures your host's system audio and streams it in lockstep with the video — YouTube, Spotify, calls, Logic mixes, system alerts. Native capture, Opus at 48 kHz, end-to-end encrypted, lip-sync at the frame level. AirPods work. CarPlay works. It just sounds like the computer is in the room.

Opus
48 kHz · stereo
~22 ms
end-to-end delay
1 frame
lip-sync alignment
E2E
AES-256 encrypted
Audio path

From speaker tap on the host to AirPods on the client.

Remio's audio path is built like the video path: capture from a native OS API on the host, encode with a low-latency codec, transmit on the same encrypted channel as the video, decode and present on the client. On macOS it uses the system Audio Tap; on Windows, WASAPI loopback — native capture, no virtual cables, no software mixer. Whatever you'd hear with the speakers turned up is what the client receives.

No separate audio mode, no DLNA discovery — the audio is part of the session.

A Mac desktop with its audio streamed to an iPhone through Remio

Native capture, Opus, one encrypted channel.

Four things happen between the host's speaker output and your ears — each tuned for real-time, not for a phone call.

Native capture, not virtual cables

macOS Audio Tap and Windows WASAPI loopback capture whatever is mixed at the output device. Neither installs a virtual cable, routes apps through a software mixer, or blocks other audio software. Capture happens where the OS hands audio to the speakers.

Opus at 48 kHz

The codec Zoom, Discord and WhatsApp trust — high quality at low bitrates, near-zero algorithmic delay (about 22 ms end-to-end on a healthy network), and excellent packet-loss recovery. Music, dialogue and system alerts all sound exactly as they should.

Encrypted on the same channel

Audio frames travel inside the same DTLS-SRTP envelope as video — the same direct peer-to-peer route, the same AES-256-GCM encryption, the same end-to-end guarantee. The relay sees opaque packets and forwards them; nobody in the middle can decrypt what's playing.

Frame-synced presentation

Each packet carries a capture timestamp from the host's clock; the client presents both streams at the same wall-clock time. Lip-sync holds to within one frame with no drift over a multi-hour session, because the clock anchor is the host.

An iPad playing streamed system audio from a host through Remio
Every device

Played through whatever you're using.

On the client, decoded audio hands off to the normal OS output pipeline. AirPods connected? Audio goes to AirPods. Switch to CarPlay mid-session and audio follows. Plug in headphones and audio follows. Remio doesn't own the routing — it produces audio frames the OS routes wherever it routes everything else. Music streaming, video calls, audio and video production, games with spatial cues — all work with the sound in place.

Stereo positional cues survive the codec — footstep direction, weapon report, ambient music.

What you can hear

Real workflows that need the audio.

A remote desktop is silent without audio routing — which means half the apps people actually use stop being useful. Here's what works with the sound in place.

Music streaming

Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music on the host play through the iPad speakers in real time. Skip a track with the media keys and audio updates instantly. Cross-fade, EQ and lossless settings are preserved because Remio captures at the system output level.

Video calls

The other side of a Zoom, Meet, FaceTime or Teams call streams to your client device. The 22 ms audio delay is well below the 200 ms where participants notice latency, and below the 80 ms where the listener notices echo. Lip-sync holds at the frame level.

Audio & video production

Mixes play back through your client headphones in sync with the timeline. Scrub the playhead and audio scrubs with you; solo and mute are instant. The 22 ms delay is within tolerance for editing and mixing; tracking through client-side plugins is closer to 40 ms round-trip.

Games

Stereo positional cues survive the codec — footstep direction, weapon report and ambient music arrive at the client with the same spatial signature they had on the host. Discord voice chat mixed into the game audio is captured and streamed together.

Privacy

Audio nobody in the middle can hear.

A remote desktop that streams unencrypted audio is sharing what you're listening to with every hop in between. Remio's audio path is encrypted end-to-end with the same keys as the video stream.

DTLS-SRTP with AES-256-GCM

Audio frames are encrypted inside the same DTLS-SRTP envelope as video frames. The keys are negotiated via Curve25519 ECDHE at pairing time, anchored to the one-time 4-digit PIN you exchanged on the local network. No third party ever holds those keys.

Relay sees encrypted bytes only

When the direct peer-to-peer path is blocked and Remio falls back to the relay, only encrypted packets cross it. The relay forwards bytes without ever knowing whether they carry audio, video, or input. There's no audio decryption anywhere outside your two paired devices.

Questions

Common questions about audio in Remio

Five questions people ask before they trust their workflow to remote-desktop audio.

Does Remio stream audio along with screen by default?
Yes. Every Remio session includes a bidirectional audio channel that opens automatically alongside the video stream. No setting to enable, no separate app, no DLNA discovery. Whatever the host is playing routes to the client speakers in sync with the video.
What audio codec does Remio use?
Opus at 48 kHz, stereo, with adaptive bitrate between 32 and 192 kbps. Opus is the same codec used by Zoom, WhatsApp and Discord — high quality at low bitrates, about 22 ms end-to-end delay on a healthy network, and excellent packet-loss resilience.
Will audio stay in sync with video when I scrub through a movie?
Yes. Remio tags audio and video frames with the same capture clock on the host and presents them together on the client. Scrubbing through a YouTube video, dragging the playhead in Logic Pro, or alt-clicking through a Final Cut timeline all keep audio and video aligned to within one frame. There's no audio drift over long sessions.
Will audio route to AirPods or Bluetooth headphones?
Yes. The audio plays through whatever the client device is currently routing to — built-in speakers, AirPods, AirPods Pro, USB-C headphones, Bluetooth speakers, CarPlay. The host has no idea what the client's output device is; it just sends the encoded Opus stream, and the client hands it to the OS's normal audio routing pipeline.
Can I use Remio for music production with low-latency monitoring?
For monitoring playback, yes — the 22 ms algorithmic delay is well within the threshold most producers tolerate for casual mixing. For real-time tracking with a microphone on the client side feeding back through the host's plugins, the round-trip is closer to 40 ms on a good network, which is at the edge for sensitive vocal monitoring. For sub-10 ms monitoring, a local interface is still the right answer; for editing, mixing and remote tweaks, Remio is comfortable.
Remio app icon

Audio you can actually hear.

Native capture on the host, Opus codec, encrypted end-to-end, lip-sync at the frame level — no second app, no virtual cables, no Bluetooth dance. The computer plays; the phone hears it. Free, no account, no card.

Free foreverNo accountAudio in every session