Building a Real-Time Audio Chat App with Flutter and Firebase: A Step-by-Step Guide

Welcome to this comprehensive guide on creating a real-time audio chat app using Flutter and Firebase! In this article, we’ll take you through the process of building a functional audio chat app with a beautiful UI, leveraging the power of Flutter and Firebase. So, buckle up and let’s dive in!

What You’ll Need

To follow along with this tutorial, you’ll need the following:

• Flutter installed on your machine (version 2.5 or higher)
• Firebase account and project set up
• Basic knowledge of Flutter and Dart programming language
• A code editor or IDE of your choice (e.g., Android Studio, Visual Studio Code)

Setting Up Firebase

Before we start building our app, we need to set up our Firebase project. If you haven’t already, create a new Firebase project and enable the Firebase Realtime Database. Follow these steps:

1. Go to the Firebase console and create a new project.
2. Click on the “Realtime Database” tab and create a new database.
3. Download the `google-services.json` file and add it to your Flutter project.
4. In your pubspec.yaml file, add the following dependencies:

dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter
  firebase_core: "^1.13.0"
  firebase_database: "^8.0.0"

Building the UI with Flutter

Now that we have our Firebase project set up, let’s start building our app’s UI using Flutter. We’ll create a simple chat interface with a text input field, send button, and a list of chat messages.

Create a new file called `chat_screen.dart` and add the following code:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

class ChatScreen extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _ChatScreenState createState() => _ChatScreenState();
}

class _ChatScreenState extends State<ChatScreen> {
  final TextEditingController _messageController = TextEditingController();

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: Text('Audio Chat App'),
      ),
      body: Column(
        children: [
          Expanded(
            child: ListView.builder(
              itemCount: 10, // placeholder for chat messages
              itemBuilder: (context, index) {
                return ListTile(
                  title: Text('Message $index'),
                );
              },
            ),
          ),
          Container(
            padding: EdgeInsets.all(16),
            child: Row(
              children: [
                Expanded(
                  child: TextField(
                    controller: _messageController,
                    decoration: InputDecoration(
                      border: OutlineInputBorder(),
                      hintText: 'Type a message...',
                    ),
                  ),
                ),
                SizedBox(width: 16),
                ElevatedButton(
                  onPressed: () {
                    // send message logic will go here
                  },
                  child: Text('Send'),
                ),
              ],
            ),
          ),
        ],
      ),
    );
  }
}

Implementing Audio Chat with Flutter

Now that we have our UI set up, let’s move on to implementing the audio chat functionality using Flutter’s `audioplayers` package.

Add the following dependency to your pubspec.yaml file:

dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter
  audioplayers: ^0.20.1

Then, create a new file called `audio_chat.dart` and add the following code:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:audioplayers/audioplayers.dart';

class AudioChat extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _AudioChatState createState() => _AudioChatState();
}

class _AudioChatState extends State<AudioChat> {
  final AudioPlayer _audioPlayer = AudioPlayer();

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return ElevatedButton(
      onPressed: () {
        _startRecording();
      },
      child: Text('Start Recording'),
    );
  }

  _startRecording() async {
    await _audioPlayer.startRecorder();
    // logic to send recorded audio will go here
  }

  _stopRecording() async {
    await _audioPlayer.stopRecorder();
    // logic to stop recording will go here
  }
}

Integrating Firebase Realtime Database

Now that we have our audio chat functionality set up, let’s integrate our Firebase Realtime Database to store and retrieve chat messages.

Create a new file called `firebase_database.dart` and add the following code:

import 'package:firebase_database/firebase_database.dart';

class FirebaseDatabaseHelper {
  final FirebaseDatabase _database = FirebaseDatabase.instance;

  Future<void> sendMessage(String message) async {
    await _database.ref('messages').push().set({
      'message': message,
      'timestamp': DateTime.now().millisecondsSinceEpoch,
    });
  }

  Stream<Event> getMessages() {
    return _database.ref('messages').onValue;
  }
}

Putting it All Together

Now that we have all the pieces in place, let’s put it all together! In your `chat_screen.dart` file, add the following code:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:audioplayers/audioplayers.dart';
import 'firebase_database.dart';

class ChatScreen extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _ChatScreenState createState() => _ChatScreenState();
}

class _ChatScreenState extends State<ChatScreen> {
  final FirebaseDatabaseHelper _databaseHelper = FirebaseDatabaseHelper();
  final AudioPlayer _audioPlayer = AudioPlayer();
  final TextEditingController _messageController = TextEditingController();

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: Text('Audio Chat App'),
      ),
      body: Column(
        children: [
          Expanded(
            child: StreamBuilder(
              stream: _databaseHelper.getMessages(),
              builder: (context, snapshot) {
                if (snapshot.hasData) {
                  return ListView.builder(
                    itemCount: snapshot.data.children.length,
                    itemBuilder: (context, index) {
                      return ListTile(
                        title: Text(snapshot.data.children[index].value['message']),
                      );
                    },
                  );
                } else {
                  return Center(
                    child: Text('No messages'),
                  );
                }
              },
            ),
          ),
          Container(
            padding: EdgeInsets.all(16),
            child: Row(
              children: [
                Expanded(
                  child: TextField(
                    controller: _messageController,
                    decoration: InputDecoration(
                      border: OutlineInputBorder(),
                      hintText: 'Type a message...',
                    ),
                  ),
                ),
                SizedBox(width: 16),
                ElevatedButton(
                  onPressed: () async {
                    await _audioPlayer.startRecorder();
                    // send recorded audio to Firebase Realtime Database
                    await _databaseHelper.sendMessage(_messageController.text);
                    await _audioPlayer.stopRecorder();
                  },
                  child: Text('Send'),
                ),
              ],
            ),
          ),
        ],
      ),
    );
  }
}

Testing the App

That’s it! We’ve built a fully functional audio chat app using Flutter and Firebase. Run the app on your emulator or physical device and test it out!

Feature	Description
Audio Chat	Records and sends audio messages to Firebase Realtime Database
Firebase Realtime Database	Stores and retrieves chat messages
Flutter UI	Provides a simple and intuitive chat interface

Conclusion:

In this article, we’ve covered the process of building a real-time audio chat app using Flutter and Firebase. We’ve walked through setting up Firebase, building the UI with Flutter, implementing audio chat functionality, and integrating Firebase Realtime Database. With this tutorial, you should now have a solid understanding of how to build a functional audio chat app using Flutter and Firebase.

Happy coding!

Frequently Asked Question

Got questions about building an audio chat with Flutter and Firebase Chat UI? We’ve got you covered! Check out our FAQs below: