====== Header chips ======

Header chips are the small status pills across the top of every dashboard tab. Use them for the readings you glance at while you are busy: battery, bond rate, GPS lock, Restreamer ingest, chat alerts, the timer and more.

Open **Settings → Header chips → Choose header chips…**.

===== What the bar is for =====

Chips are status first. They hide when they have nothing true to say, so a GPS speed chip does not show **0 mph** before there is a fix.

Most chips are read-only. Tapping a chip usually opens the tab it came from. A few chips have a safe button:

  * Overlay chips can hide or restore all overlays.
  * **Camera says** can dismiss a Companion camera message.
  * **Ask AI** starts the "What am I looking at?" action.

The same chip list can also ride over the camera picture on the Chat tab when **Chat → Settings → Chips over the video** is set that way.

===== Set up your chips =====

On the Header chips page:

  - Use the catalog cards under each group to add chips.
  - Tap a chip in **Your chips** to choose where the next chip, divider or line break lands.
  - Use the arrow buttons to reorder.
  - Type in the rename box if the default label is too long.
  - Use the icon picker if another icon is easier for you to spot.
  - Press the tag button to hide or show the small label beside the value.
  - Press **Add line break** to force the following chips onto a new row.
  - Press **Add divider** to add a vertical rule.
  - Press **Remove all** to clear the header.
  - Press **Save**.

Use **Back to settings** or **Back to dashboard** at the top to leave the page.

The live preview uses the real chip renderer, so what you see there is what the dashboard header will do.

===== When no chips are chosen =====

If you have never opened the editor, the dashboard keeps its old built-in header.

Once you save a chip list, that list is the header. If you save an empty list, the header collapses away. Alerts that belong above the tabs can still appear.

===== Clicking a chip =====

For ordinary chips, one click opens the related tab:

^ Group ^ Opens ^
| Chat | Chat |
| Overlays | Overlay control |
| OBS | OBS |
| Router | Router |
| Internal router modem | Router |
| Bonding | Bonding |
| Director Mini | Director Mini |
| DJI Camera | DJI |
| SJCAM | SJCAM |
| Companion | Companion |
| Backup stream | Restreamer |
| Restreamer | Restreamer |
| Restream.io | Restream.io |
| GPS | GPS |
| Weather | Weather |
| Time and date | Clock |
| Timer | Timer |

Some chips land on a specific card. **Alerts** opens the Chat tab and the Chat alerts list. Restream.io audience chips open the Restream.io tab's audience area.

===== Special chips =====

==== Alerts ====

**Alerts** shows unseen Chat alerts. It hides at zero. Click it to open the Chat tab at the alert list. Chat alerts can include keywords, members, Super Chats and any rules you set on the Chat tab.

==== Ask AI ====

**Ask AI** shows **What am I looking at?**. Click it to grab a still from the camera and ask the configured AI provider what the camera is seeing. The answer comes to you first; you choose whether it goes on stream. AI setup is in **Settings → AI assistant**.

==== Camera says ====

**Camera says** appears automatically when a Companion camera phone sends an unread message. You do not have to add it. It shows the oldest unread line, for example **1 of 3 - Camera 2: battery low**.

Click the chip or its **x** to dismiss only the message shown. The next unread message takes its place. Double-click the chip, or focus it and press Enter/Space, to open the Companion tab at that camera's talkback card.

Companion talkback is part of StreamHelpers Pro. Without Pro, the chip has nothing to show.

==== Restream.io audience chips ====

These chips appear only when Restream.io is connected and a live event is active:

  * **Watching** — viewers now across destinations.
  * **Peak** — most viewers at once this event.
  * **Views** — total views this event.
  * **Chat** — messages and chatters this event.

Restream updates these numbers about once a minute. They are hidden while you are not live because **0 watching** would not mean anything useful then.

===== All available chips =====

The picker groups chips exactly like this.

==== Chat ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Unread** | Messages that arrived while the Chat tab was not open. |
| **Alerts** | Unseen chat alerts; opens the alert list. |
| **Ask AI** | **What am I looking at?** action. |

==== Overlays ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Overlays** | How many overlays are on out of the total, with a hide/restore button. |
| **On** | Names of overlays currently visible, with a hide/restore button. |

The hide/restore button (the eye) takes every overlay off for a clean shot and puts the same ones back. While the router saves the change the eye turns into a spinner. If the change did not take, a warning triangle shows for a few seconds - hover it for the reason - and then the eye comes back so you can press it again. The eye beside the Director Mini's graphics works the same way.

==== OBS ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **OBS** | Whether OBS is streaming, and for how long. |
| **REC** | Whether OBS is recording. |
| **Scene** | Current OBS program scene. |

==== Router ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Battery** | Router battery percentage and charging state. |
| **CPU** | Real CPU use. |
| **Load** | One-minute load average. |
| **Temp** | Hottest router CPU thermal zone. |
| **RAM** | Memory in use. |
| **Uptime** | How long the router has been running. |
| **Clients** | Devices connected to the router. |
| **Internet** | Whether the router itself can reach the internet, and through which connection. Amber once it has been out for a minute; see [[#when-the-router-has-no-internet|When the router has no internet]]. Says **(failover)** when the router's [[dashboard:router-and-bonding#internet-failover|Internet failover]] has moved its traffic to the other connection. |

==== Internal router modem ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Signal** | Cellular signal quality score. |
| **Network** | Radio type and band. |
| **Carrier** | Mobile network name. |
| **RSRP** | Cellular reference signal power. |
| **WAN up** | Upload throughput on the active WAN link. |

==== Bonding ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Bond** | Whether the bonded sender is running and its total rate. |
| **Links** | Active uplinks out of bonded uplinks. |
| **In use** | Names of the uplinks carrying the bond. |

==== Director Mini ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **DM link** | Whether the Director Mini is reachable. |
| **Destination** | Director Mini stream outputs that are connected. |
| **DM rate** | Director Mini encoder bitrate. |
| **DM scene** | Current Director Mini scene. |
| **DM overlays** | Director Mini graphics on program. |
| **DM REC** | Whether the Director Mini is recording. |
| **DM battery** | Director Mini battery packs or external power. |

==== DJI Camera ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Camera** | The DJI camera last detected over Bluetooth. |
| **Cam video** | Whether video is flowing from the camera, and at what rate. |
| **Cam battery** | Camera battery; it can be stale because it refreshes over Bluetooth. |

==== SJCAM ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **SJCAM** | Whether an SJCAM is on the router Wi-Fi. |
| **SJCAM video** | Whether SJCAM video is reaching the Companion director, and at what rate. |

==== Companion ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Camera says** | Unread Companion camera talkback messages. Always shown when needed. |
| **Director** | Which Android device is acting as director or GPS source. |
| **Director state** | Live, preview, starting, idle or error. |
| **On air** | Which camera input is on program. |
| **Cameras** | Which director inputs have video. |
| **Encoder** | Director's outgoing bitrate toward the router. |
| **Director battery** | Director device battery and charging state. |
| **Director temp** | Director device battery temperature and Android thermal state. |
| **Devices** | Android devices checking in, and how many are sharing data. |
| **Music** | Background music: off, or ON with the track and volume. |
| **Audio remover** | Background audio remover on the streaming server: ON with its preset, starting, paused for music, off or fault. |
| **Remover details** | The remover's preset, how far it turns noise down (dB), the music detector's last score in automatic mode, the CPU it uses on the streaming server and the delay it adds. Amber above 80% CPU or while starting, red on a fault. |

==== Backup stream ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Backup** | Backup video state: off, preparing, armed, on air or not installed. |
| **Dropouts** | Dropouts in the last day and seconds covered. |
| **Head start** | Viewer delay in force, automatic target and runway left. |
| **Fine tuning** | Switch-over, return and bitrate-floor rules. |

==== Restreamer ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Ingest** | Bitrate Restreamer is receiving. It warns while backup is on air or just covered a dropout. |
| **FPS** | Incoming frame rate. |
| **Ingest up** | How long the current ingest has been connected. |
| **RS CPU** | CPU load on the Restreamer machine. |
| **RS RAM** | Memory use on the Restreamer machine. |
| **Publishing** | Platforms Restreamer is publishing to now. |

==== Restream.io ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Restream** | Whether Restream.io has a live event right now. |
| **Live event** | Names of Restream.io events currently live. |
| **Destinations** | Destinations connected to your Restream.io account, by platform (//YouTube · Twitch ×2//). Hover for each channel's name. |
| **Route** | How this rig is routed toward Restream.io. |
| **Watching** | Viewers now across every destination. |
| **Peak** | Peak viewers this event. |
| **Views** | Total views this event. |
| **Chat** | Chat messages and chatters this event. |

==== GPS ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **GPS** | Whether the receiver has a fix. |
| **Speed** | Ground speed, hidden until there is a fix. |
| **Heading** | Course over ground as compass point and degrees. |
| **Altitude** | Altitude above sea level. |
| **Accuracy** | Rough horizontal accuracy from HDOP. |
| **Satellites** | Satellites visible to the receiver. |

==== Weather ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Temp** | Current temperature at your location. |
| **Feels** | Apparent temperature. |
| **Humidity** | Relative humidity. |
| **Wind** | Wind speed and direction. |
| **Rain** | Precipitation in the last hour. |
| **UV** | UV index and risk band. |
| **Conditions** | Plain-language sky conditions. |

==== Time and date ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Time** | Current local time, 12-hour. |
| **Time** | Current local time, 24-hour. |
| **Date** | Today's date. |
| **Date and time** | Date and time together, 12-hour. |
| **Date and time** | Date and time together, 24-hour. |

These chips ship with labels hidden by default because the icon and value are enough. You can turn the labels back on.

==== Timer ====

^ Chip ^ Shows ^
| **Timer** | Timer reading, counting up or down. |
| **Timer state** | Running, stopped, idle, counting down or finished. |

===== Colours =====

The chip colour is about the value shown on that chip:

  * Green means OK.
  * Amber means pay attention.
  * Red means bad or stopped.
  * Grey means idle, off, not available or not meaningful.

A chip should not be red just because a service exists but is not part of your current setup. If you saved a chip for a service you are no longer using, the editor warns you and offers **Remove them**.

===== When the router has no internet =====

Some chips read from services out on the internet rather than from the router: the **Restream.io** chips, **Weather**, and the **Restreamer** and **Backup stream** chips, which ask your streaming server over Tailscale. The router asks them over its own internet connection - usually the venue Wi-Fi it is repeating. The video does not go that way: the bond sends it over every link at once. So when the venue Wi-Fi drops, the stream can be fine while the router cannot ask those services anything, and their chips would look broken when nothing there is wrong.

The header knows the difference:

  * While the router's own internet is out, those chips keep their last reading, drawn grey with a dashed border instead of red, and their buttons are hidden. After a minute they say how old the reading is (//· 3m 10s old//). Hover one for the reason.
  * A note appears at the front of the bar: **Router · no internet 2m 05s · far-end readings paused**. It is grey for the first minute and amber after that, never red, because the stream may be fine. It says **sign-in page** instead when a venue sign-in page is answering in place of the internet, and **sign-in mode · server readings paused** while you are signing in to venue Wi-Fi from the Router tab. Tap it to open the Router tab.
  * For 20 seconds after the internet comes back, the chips wait for fresh readings rather than calling anything a fault.
  * A service that stops answering while the router's internet is working is shown as the real problem: as soon as the router's own internet check comes back fine, or after 30 seconds at most.
  * The coloured dots on the tab menu follow the same rule.

Add the **Internet** chip from the Router group to see this on the bar all the time. It reads **online · venue WiFi (wlan3)**, **offline 2m 05s** or **sign-in page 2m 05s**. With that chip on the bar the note at the front is not shown, because the chip already says the same thing.

**Most outages are short now.** The Router tab's [[dashboard:router-and-bonding#internet-failover|Internet failover]] moves the router's own traffic to the other connection within about 15 seconds when the one in use stops reaching the internet or shows a sign-in page, and moves it back once that one works again. The far-end chips go grey for those few seconds and then carry on by themselves. While the traffic has moved, the **Internet** chip stays green and reads **online · cellular (failover)**; hover it for the reason. It reads **online · cellular (preferred)** if you chose **Cellular first** on that card.

===== Performance =====

The router only polls sources used by your chosen chips. Five Weather chips cost the same as one Weather chip because they share one Weather poll. A rig with no chosen chips starts no chip pollers.

Polls slow down when the dashboard tab is hidden.

===== Backup and restore =====

Header chips are included in **Settings → Backup & restore**. A restored chip list keeps order, custom labels, custom icons, label on/off choices, line breaks and dividers.

If a backup from a newer dashboard contains a chip this version does not know yet, the editor shows it as an **Unknown chip** row so you can remove it.