In today’s fast-paced world of mobile app development, ensuring smooth functionality across a wide range of devices and operating systems is more critical than ever. Traditionally, QA teams maintained extensive inventories of physical devices—an approach that was not only costly but also time-consuming and difficult to scale.
Enter cloud testing: a modern solution that allows developers and testers to run comprehensive mobile tests without the burden of managing real device labs. With on-demand access to actual Android and iOS devices hosted in the cloud, teams can replicate real-world user experiences more efficiently and at scale.
Cloud testing empowers teams to accelerate their testing cycles, deliver higher-quality applications, and improve overall user satisfaction—all while keeping costs under control.
In this article, we’ll explore the concept of real device cloud testing, its key advantages, and best practices to help you get the most out of this innovative approach.
What is a Real Device Cloud?
A “real device cloud” is a cloud-based platform that delivers remote access to a variety of genuine mobile devices for testing. Developers and testers can connect with real tablets, smartphones, and other devices via a real device cloud, as opposed to emulators or simulators that imitate mobile device behavior. With this configuration, applications are tested in real-world circumstances using a variety of network connections, operating systems, hardware, and screen sizes. Using a real device cloud to remotely conduct automated or manual tests on devices they do not physically own saves test teams the work and expense of purchasing and maintaining large device inventories.
Benefits of real device cloud testing
Mentioned below are some points suggesting why real device cloud testing is a game-changer for developers and testers:
- Stay updated: It’s vital to set up a mobile environment that is up-to-date with the latest arrivals in demand, be it devices, operating systems, or brands. Real device testing is the best option to make this happen since it’s loaded with the latest browsers and OS.
- Work from anywhere: Real device cloud testing allows developers to connect with their teammates and test from the comfort of their workstations or homes, even if they are in the busiest project involving mobile app testing on the cloud.
- Get the latest updates: When developers miss a certain feature or tool in their physical device, they need to wait until they get hold of it. It’s not the case in real device cloud testing, where they can access every feature they need then and there through plugins and extensions.
- Flawless communication: There is no need to send endless emails and wait for a timely reply in vain, only to receive customer feedback on the same bug. Developers can mark a bug without any delay and notify their team through project management tools like JIRA and Slack.
- Parallel testing: A real device on the cloud is suitable for large-scale testing where testers can test on a wide range of devices simultaneously through parallel testing. This is one major advantage of real device cloud testing.
Key metrics for real device cloud testing
There always remains a question in the testers’ minds about why to choose real device cloud testing over other testing methods, like emulators. Here are some of the metrics that can be measured using a real device cloud to enhance the user experience and performance of a mobile application.
- User Interface- The main reason why user experience is crucial for organizations is that if users cannot find what they need within a few clicks or scrolls, they may leave the mobile app immediately. A good user interface is crucial for mobile apps to deliver flawless user experiences. The actual device cloud testing is the best way to analyze user experience when external hardware and factors are involved.
- Network Conditions- The fluctuation in network strength is one of the major reasons for the low performance of mobile apps. With many people using 4G and 5G networks, it is difficult for network providers to maintain consistent connectivity. With real device cloud testing, enterprises can execute network bandwidth throttling, which helps them to tighten or loosen the bandwidth numbers.
- As network issues are caused due to hardware, software, and network reception issues, simulators cannot provide accurate results. However, device cloud testing can provide an accurate analysis of the network performance and can also aid in testing.
- Sensors- Mobile devices use a large number of sensors to deliver a variety of functionalities. Light, proximity, barometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, temperature, relative humidity, and accelerometer are a few of the sensors. Since these sensors involve intricate technology, testing them on actual devices is essential.
Generally, QA experts use emulators to test sensors during the early development stages. However, testing of sensors in real devices is important in the final stages of app development to collect accurate, valuable insights into the performance of apps.
- CPU Usage- Mobile devices can get hotter due to increased CPU use, further impacting app performance. Metrics related to memory and GPU usage can also affect CPU usage. Owing to these factors, it is difficult for simulators to test CPU usage in mobile devices. Thus, mobile device cloud testing is imperative to obtain precise readings related to mobile devices’ CPU usage.
- Battery- Mobile applications can impact the battery life of mobile devices. To check and avoid this scenario, it is necessary for app developers to test their apps on real devices. Even a highly developed simulator is not able to simulate different device battery drain scenarios and app behavior.
Top real device cloud testing platforms
Listed below are some top real device cloud testing platforms:
LambdaTest- LambdaTest is an AI-native test orchestration and execution platform utilized for testing web and mobile applications, both automated and manual, at scale. Using this platform, testers can execute tests in parallel in real-time and automatically by getting access to more than 5000 environments, real mobile devices, and browsers online.
This cloud-based platform uses faster DevTools to debug mobile apps across multiple devices with different screen sizes. It secures a seamless user experience by inspecting the app’s responsiveness on different network profiles, like 3G, 4G, 5G, etc. It also equips users with app installation flexibility, enabling the installation of multiple apps in one go and easily uploading .aab, .apk, .ipa files, or installing directly from the Play Store/App Store.
It also ensures that the app supports multiple locales to provide a seamless user experience for diverse language and regional settings. Testing the website or mobile app from different geoIPs helps ensure that users get the perfect experience across all locations. Additionally, testing biometric authentication in the app with LambdaTest’s Beta-Secure helps streamline user verification.
LambdaTest also supports popular test automation tools, including Selenium ChromeDriver, enabling teams to validate cross-browser compatibility and automate end-to-end test flows on real mobile browsers.
Experitest (formerly Testdroid)- Experitest, formerly known as Testdroid, is a cloud-based testing platform that allows testing of mobile apps on real iOS and Android devices in addition to automated and manual testing options. It is interoperable with prime testing frameworks like Appium, Espresso, and Selenium.
Its mobile test automation solution, SeeTest, allows testers to automate functional and performance tests. This is all while simulating real-time device access to analyze user behavior and interactions.
AWS Device Farm- With Amazon’s cloud-based service, AWS Device Farm, developers and testers may test their mobile apps on various real Android and iOS devices. Both automated and manual testing are available, and testers can accelerate the process by running tests together. Developers can automate testing quickly and virtually by integrating AWS Device Farm with well-known testing frameworks.
Along with thorough data, device logs, and screenshots, the service aids developers and testers in promptly finding and fixing problems. For developers who wish to guarantee the quality of their program across many device kinds without making costly hardware investments, AWS Device Farm is the best option because of its scalable and economical strategy.
TestFairy- TestFairy is a mobile app testing platform that allows real-device testing for iOS and Android apps. It allows testers to find problems quickly by providing complete and thorough session recordings, crash reports, and logs in addition to real-time testing on real devices. Developers may share apps with testers in real-time and get feedback with TestFairy’s beta distribution capability. Automation frameworks like Appium and Espresso are supported, and they connect with several CI/CD solutions.
Best practices for performing real device cloud testing
Here are some best practices for real device cloud testing to ensure effective and efficient mobile app testing:
Test on a Wide Range of Devices and OS Versions
- Why: App performance and user experience are sometimes affected by the various behaviors of different devices and OS versions.
- Best Practice: Developers can select a testing platform that offers a wide spectrum of devices (smartphones, tablets, wearables) and OS versions (both new and old). It helps to ensure great compatibility throughout the user base.
Utilize Parallel Testing
- Why: Simultaneous testing on several devices shortens the total testing duration. This is especially beneficial when testing on various platforms.
- Best Practice: To increase efficiency and speed up the feedback loop, use cloud testing platforms that provide parallel test execution to execute tests concurrently across several devices.
Optimize Test Case Design for Cloud Testing
- Why: Not all test cases are suitable for parallel or cloud testing.
- Best Practice: Structure the test cases to reduce reliability and prioritize modular, isolated test cases that can be executed independently. This guarantees that tests are quicker and can be executed across multiple devices in parallel without any sort of interference.
Leverage Debugging and Reporting Tools
- Why: When issues arise, having a clear way to diagnose and fix them is crucial for faster resolution.
- Best Practice: Use the debugging tools offered by cloud platforms to view detailed logs, device screen recordings, and error reports. This allows testers to identify and address issues more effectively.
Conclusion
To conclude, real device cloud testing equips its users with a reliable and effective mobile app testing solution. It removes the need for expensive physical device laboratories, permitting testers and developers to access real devices from various locations. This expedites release cycles, streamlines testing, and guarantees excellent user experiences across various devices and operating systems. Organizations may utilize real-world device cloud testing to enhance the scalability, efficacy, and performance of their apps.
