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Developers · iPhone & iPad

A real-time avatar for your iPhone and iPad app

The bitHuman Swift package renders Essence 2 — a photoreal person — or Expression 2 — any character — on the iPhone or iPad itself. Your app passes in 16 kHz speech from any voice stack and draws the frames it gets back.

From 12 October 2026, API and SDK use requires the Creator plan or higher.

First frame in the docsGet an API secret

Install

Swift Package Manager
.package(url: "https://gitlab.com/bithuman/sdk/homebrew-bithuman", from: "2.20.5")
Products
.product(name: "Expression2", package: "homebrew-bithuman")   // any character
.product(name: "Essence2Kit", package: "homebrew-bithuman")   // a photoreal person

What you need: Xcode 26+, API secret (from the docs)

Your first frame, step by step The full iPhone & iPad guide

Add a conversation

The Swift package only renders: your app passes in 16 kHz mono speech and draws the frames it returns. Bring your own voice stack, or let bitHuman's managed agent run the conversation instead.

  • Your own speech recognition, language model and voice

    Any stack works: the SDK takes 16 kHz mono speech. OpenAI Realtime returns 24 kHz audio: resample it to 16 kHz before you pass it in. The converter is in the docs.

    Resample speech to 16 kHz

  • Build the companion screen

    The companion guide walks through the whole loop on the phone: the SDK, the API secret, resampling, replies, interruption and closing the avatar with the screen.

    Companion app (docs)

  • Or let bitHuman run the conversation

    The web embed runs a managed agent on bitHuman's servers with your persona and, if you like, your own OpenAI-compatible model; a LiveKit agent can use a bitHuman cloud avatar. Either way the avatar renders in the bitHuman cloud (the web embed's default), not on the phone.

    Web embed

When the avatar renders in your app on the device and you use your own voice and language services, bitHuman receives usage metering only, never audio, video or conversation text.

Requirements

  • Essence 2 needs a physical iPhone or iPad; it does not run in the Simulator. Expression 2 also runs in the Simulator.
  • The first run downloads the avatar model.
  • Device and OS floors for each model are in the docs.

What it costs

What it costs to run an avatar in your app
ItemOn the device (Essence 2, Expression 2)bitHuman cloud avatarManaged voice chat (all-inclusive)
Credits per minute of active session time2410
At top-up rates ($1 = 100 credits)about $0.02about $0.04about $0.10

From 12 October 2026, API and SDK use requires the Creator plan or higher.

Rates from GET https://api.bithuman.ai/v1/pricing, as published on docs.bithuman.ai/pricing.

The full table, with a worked example Budget an app (docs)

Examples you can clone

All examples

Before you ship

The full checklist

Not available on this platform

  • A conversation brain that runs on the iPhone: the conversation is your app's, or runs in the cloud.
  • Offline operation: a session needs a connection to start, and keeps rendering through a network drop of up to 5 minutes.

Questions? Ask on Discord

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