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How to live stream a padel match from your phone, with a scoreboard

One Android phone is enough to stream a padel match to YouTube, Facebook or Twitch with the score on screen: points, games and sets, like on TV. With Calypso you don’t count 15-30-40 yourself: you tap who won the point and the scoreboard does the rest.

What you need

  • An Android phone and a tripod or a clamp for the fence or the glass.
  • A power bank if you stream several matches in a row.
  • A good upload connection at the court. Club Wi-Fi is often busy: run a speed test from the spot where you will film, and use mobile data if it is better.
  • A channel to stream to. On YouTube, live streaming has to be switched on once and can take up to 24 hours to activate, so do it a day before. Streaming with a stream key, as Calypso does, doesn’t need the 50 subscribers that YouTube’s own app asks for.

Where to put the phone

  • Behind one of the back walls, centred and as high as you can: it is the TV angle and it shows both pairs and the whole court.
  • Outside the glass if possible, or with the lens pressed close to it, so reflections and marks don’t get in the shot.
  • In landscape, framing the whole court. Once it is set, don’t touch it: in padel a fixed shot works better than following the ball.

Set up the stream in Calypso

  1. Install Calypso and tell it where you stream: YouTube, Facebook, Twitch or any RTMP server. Paste the stream key once and Calypso keeps it. With Pro, YouTube connects with one tap and no key.
  2. Add each pair as a team, named after its two players (for example, “García / López”), with a club badge if you have one.
  3. Open Overlay settings and choose Padel as the sport.
  4. Pick the two pairs and a style for the scoreboard. It shows the points in the centre, the games below and the sets won on the right.
  5. Go live a few minutes before the first serve and check on another phone that the stream looks and sounds right.

During the match

  • Points: tap + for the pair that won the point. Calypso counts 15, 30, 40, deuce and advantage, and closes the game and the set by itself.
  • Sets: a set goes to 6 games with a two-game lead. At 6-6 a tie-break to 7 starts on its own, with the points shown as numbers.
  • Mistakes: − takes away a point from the current game, and the game buttons (J1 and J2, with + and −) add or remove whole games, for example if you join a match already started.
  • Replays (Pro): save a great point and show it again on the stream.

Golden point and super tie-break

Calypso plays deuce with advantages. If your league uses the golden point, at 40-40 give the game straight to the winning pair with its J+ button. The super tie-break instead of a third set isn’t built in yet.

Before every match

  • Do a short test stream from the club, with the same phone and connection.
  • Charge the phone and the power bank, and turn on Do Not Disturb so calls don’t interrupt the stream.
  • Check that both pairs are set up and that you picked Padel, not Tennis.
  • If the upload at the club is weak, lower the quality of your stream profile to 720p: a smooth stream is better than a sharp one that stutters.

What it costs

Calypso is free to install and streaming is free, with no ads. Free streams carry a small Calypso mark in a corner. Pro removes it and adds replays and one-tap YouTube for 5,99 € a month or 49,99 € a year.

Get it on Google Play

Free to install. Pro and Max are bought inside the app.