Connecting to Mobile Devices
Overview
Eggplant Functional supports multiple methods for testing Android and iOS mobile devices. The best method to use depends on your particular use case. To test mobile devices, you may:
- Access physical or virtual devices hosted by Sauce Labs
- Access physical or emulated devices that you or your organization own
Testing mobile devices through Sauce Labs may be best for you if you don't want to incur the burden of purchasing and maintaining mobile devices. Using Sauce Labs also gives you access to a large selection of mobile devices and mobile device operating systems. It essentially gives you access to a comprehensive mobile device compatibility lab. For details on accessing mobile devices via Sauce Labs, please see Connecting to Sauce Labs Devices and Browsers.
Testing devices that your organization owns may be best for you if network restrictions and/or cost prevent you from accessing Sauce Labs' cloud-based services. In some cases, you also may need to perform certain low-level device operations which are not permitted on Sauce Labs. Regardless of which model you choose, Eggplant Functional will make it easy for you to accomplish your testing.
Testing devices that you own is a little more complicated than the Sauce Labs use-case. How you test your devices depends on the type of the device you are testing (i.e. iOS or Android). There are shared similarities between the devices, but each device platform has its own unique requirements.
To test Android or iOS devices that you own, you have two options:
- Use Eggplant Functional's Mobile Device Connection
- Use one of Eggplant's Classic Gateway applications.
In most cases, Eggplant recommends that you use a Mobile Device Connection as it provides a more streamlined workflow for testing mobile devices that you own. However, if you are (or have been) using one of Eggplant's Classic Gateway applications to host mobile devices that you own for shared usage across a network, you should continue to use the Classic Gateway application.
The Mobile Device Connections were added to Eggplant Functional in v22.5. If you have an earlier version of Eggplant Functional, you must use a Classic Gateway application to test your mobile devices.
Since the Mobile Device Connections are the recommended method of testing mobile devices that you own, the Eggplant Functional documents focus exclusively on using Mobile Device Connections. If you must use a Classic Gateway application, please refer to the Classic iOS Gateway and Classic Android Gateway documentation for details on how to use them.
Connecting to Mobile Devices
Before you attempt your first connection to a mobile device, it may be helpful for you to understand several concepts related to using mobile devices with Eggplant. Please read Working with Android Mobile Devices and/or Working with iOS Mobile Devices before setting up your first Mobile Device Connection. If you are already familiar with the mobile device workflow for your mobile device, you are ready to enter the world of mobile device testing.
To create a Mobile Device Connection, you may do so using Eggplant Functional's Connection List UI or via scripting. Please see Using the Eggplant Functional Connection List for details on creating Mobile Device Connections through the UI or the SenseTalk Connect Command for information on creating the connections via SenseTalk. To run scripts that use Mobile Device Connections from a command line interface (CLI), you can use the Runscript command.