It’s not necessary and should be grouped in with viewer count, especially if they are actively participating in chat. However when it has to do with viewing or viewing from phone and or tabbing on pc. If they are connected to chat, they are a viewer. Getting rid of separate connections as far as viewer analytics is concerned, should be doable without compromising streamers who use pop out chat on their own channel for streaming through OBS or other third party services. When I say get rid of, I mean in essence of viewers analytics. *edit clarification: I know the pop out chats do have usage. The way it is now is obviously a problem when every single one of the streamers and viewers are complaining and noticing the same exact thing. anonymousviewer) and make the username unavailable to be created by anyone other than twitch to combat trolling and bots. And if you need to keep record on connects to chat to have the numbers match up, then put a “place holder” for non username viewers. If they don’t have a username then they are still a viewer. If a person is on your channel while you are live, then they are a viewer AND a chatter if they have a username. Get rid of the whole “pop out” chat stuff. If their name pops up in chat, they are a viewer. Simple fix twitch… get rid of the separate connections. Contradicting what twitch just informed all of us about lurkers being able to have as many tabs open and still count as a viewer. Twitch has said “all lurkers count as views.” However, when testing as a lurker, only 2 streams are counting me as a viewer. Are actually having us pulled up on their screen and chatting with us. Our active viewers have us tabbed and open. This is contradictory to the tests we’ve all performed with our viewers in chat, as well as ourselves. You can learn more about your Viewer Count and Users in Chat in this help article. In some instances, an account can be connected to your chat without watching your live broadcast - like chat bots, users in chat-only mode, or users in pop-out chat mode - which would then create a difference in your total number of Users in Chat and your Viewer Count. Your total Users in Chat reflects the number of logged-in Twitch accounts that are connected to your chat. Your Viewer Count reflects the total number of people watching your live broadcast, whether or not they have logged into a Twitch account. “Hey everyone! Just wanted to pop on here to give some clarification.

This is what Twitch wrote then closed the thread:

Twitch mirc chat numbers