Android devices are vastly fragmented in terms of operating system versions, screen sizes, brands, and hardware specifications. Do you want to know how many Android devices are currently operational? The fact that more than 1000 new devices come into the market every year should give you a rough idea about the vastness of this industry. It is almost impossible to test your apps on Android devices without using our device farm.

Device farms will allow you to test apps on a wide variety of real devices, including Android, to overcome the limitations of traditional testing setups. If you are trying to understand the best practices for device farm testing to target Android devices, this is the perfect article for you.

Here, we will understand various strategies for properly using device farms to manage Android device fragmentation, the common challenges of this process, and how to ensure the best performance.

Understanding Device Farms for Android Testing

Before we start discussing the technical strategies, we must take a step back and understand the basics of device farms. In most cases, a device farm is a cloud-based platform that will help you to run the apps on various real devices which are specifically hosted by the service provider. Popular device farms include AWS device farm and LambdaTest.

The major advantage of using a device farm over a local testing setup is the access to rare devices, supporting multiple operating system versions, and also allowing the execution of parallel testing across multiple devices. Moreover, device farms will provide access to certain legacy browser versions that are no longer available in the market.

The implementation of a device farm will help you to increase the test coverage, reduce the testing time, and also offer valuable insights about real world app performance across multiple user conditions.

To properly understand the benefits of using device farms for fragmented Android testing, let us divert our attention towards some other noteworthy inclusions in this list:

  • Device farms will grant access to a wide range of devices which will cover various brands, screen sizes, and Android versions.
  • This is the perfect option for implementing real device testing to understand various user conditions and the application’s behavior based on these conditions.
  • Device farms are also a good option if you’re trying to implement simultaneous test cases on multiple devices using parallel testing. This approach is best suited to allow faster feedback loops and also efficient resource utilization processes.

Types of Device Farms: Cloud-based vs. On-premises

Most of the currently available device farms can be broadly classified into on-premise devices and cloud-based device farms. Let us improve our understanding of these two options so that you can choose the perfect option according to your needs:

  • Cloud-based device farms are usually hosted by a service provider and accessible from anywhere in the world. This makes it the most scalable option. It is also very economical for small companies or individual developers as it adopts a pay-as-you-go model.
  • On the other hand, on-premise device farms are maintained in-house, giving the company full control over the devices and the network configurations. However, these farms are very complex and time-consuming to set up and maintain. An on-premise device farm will be your perfect choice if your organization needs to comply with certain security and privacy regulations.

Key Testing Strategies for Fragmented Android Devices on Device Farms

Let us now divert our attention toward some of the most important strategies that you must consider for implementing fragmented Android device testing on device farms:

1. Selecting Target Devices and OS Versions

You have to begin this process by carefully planning the device farm testing procedure. Want to know how? Select the devices and operating system combinations that you want to include in the strategy. The best way to approach this step is by using user analytics data to identify high-traffic devices, operating system versions, and screen sizes.

By maintaining your focus on your popular target devices, you can achieve broader test coverage with minimal resource allocation.

2. Implementing Automation Testing for Scalability

Automation testing is very important to maintain scalability in fragmented testing scenarios. You can use various automation frameworks like Espresso or Appium for this purpose. During this process, you should also aim to create adaptable and reusable test scripts to ensure that the tests work across different devices and screen orientations.

3. Prioritizing Functional and UI Testing

For applications to deliver consistent performance irrespective of the device, you must test them for both functionality and user interface elements on multiple devices.

  • Functional testing will help you check that the core app features are working as expected. For example, you must test user logins, navigations, and data entries on various devices as these are the basic tasks that will be performed by your users.
  • On the other hand, user interface testing will help ensure a consistent layout and design across different screen resolutions. This step can face various challenges, like varying pixel densities and display sizes. UI testing will help eliminate these layout issues on diverse devices and provide an optimal end-user experience.

4. Running Performance and Stress Tests on Device Farms

Performance testing is very important to ensure the application can handle various real-world usage scenarios. Device farms will allow you to simulate real-world conditions across metrics like CPU load, memory usage, and network connectivity. Your performance testing scenarios must consist of the following conditions:

  • It must have load tests to evaluate the responsiveness and stability of the overall application architecture.
  • You can also implement stress testing to determine how will the application handle resource limitations like limited memory and low battery.
  • You can also consider including network tests to assess performance under varying conditions like 4G, 3G, and Wi-Fi networks.

5. Using Continuous Integration (CI) Pipelines

The final step in this process is to integrate continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines. This inclusion will allow you to automate regular testing processes after the system detects any code change. The primary goal of this inclusion is to enhance the efficiency of regression testing, especially when you’re working in a fast-paced development cycle.

Best Practices for Effective Device Farm Testing on Fragmented Devices

There are certain practices that we highly recommend including with device farm testing to improve its abilities in terms of productivity and final application quality:

Using The Correct Remote Device Farm

Since there are multiple remote device farms available in the market, we suggest the testers to choose the correct one that suits their requirements and also that of the application that is currently being tested.

To understand how the correct device farm can improve your testing capabilities, let us consider the example of LambdaTest:

LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that lets you perform manual and automation testing at scale with over 3000 real devices, browsers, and OS combinations.  This remote test lab will also allow you to access legacy devices and outdated browser versions for a more inclusive testing strategy.

Moreover, after executing the test, it will automatically create a test report with various screenshots and videos so that you can easily find the faulty element and take the required actions.

Optimizing the Test Time

It is very important to optimize the test execution time to maintain the overall efficiency. You can utilize parallel testing to avoid overusing the resources and group the tests instead. It is also important to prioritize critical devices or those with larger user bases to maintain coverage without sacrificing the test speed.

Using Logs and Reports for Detailed Analysis

We suggest the testers to use the robust reporting and logging features natively present in almost all device farms. It will help you to diagonalize issues across different devices. While comprehensive logs will provide detailed debugging abilities, reporting tools will provide insights into app performance metrics, test coverage, and potential issues.

Managing Network Conditions for Accurate Testing

Besides simulating various network conditions, you should also analyze the app’s performance on network connectivity issues like high latency or unstable bandwidth. For this purpose, you can use network throttling tools that can be easily integrated with your device farm.

Overcoming Challenges in Device Farm Testing

Although device farm testing comes with a huge load of benefits, it also has its own share of challenges that you must be aware of. To help you understand this process, we have mentioned some of the most commonly faced challenges of implementing device farm testing for Android fragmentation:

  • It can be a challenging process to use a remote device farm for executing the test cases on outdated devices. To overcome this challenge, you can consider adjusting your app’s features based on the device’s capabilities like limiting high-performance features on older devices.
  • As we mentioned earlier, device farms charge based on device usage. So, efficient testing strategies are crucial for managing the cost of a device farm. You can also consider grouping the tests to run them simultaneously or limiting the tests to critical devices for optimizing your resource allocation.
  • Finally, while using a device farm, you might be working with testing teams from different time zones. This can cause a delay in feedback implementation and test initiation. You can consider using automated scheduling with CI pipelines to streamline the tests across the time zones. You can also run localization tests on the app to ensure proper performance across languages and regions

The Bottom Line

Based on all the factors that we have put forward in this article, we can safely say that device farm testing is a very important part of overcoming the challenges of Android device fragmentation. By implementing all the strategies that we mentioned in this article, you can ensure that your app delivers a seamless user experience across the target Android devices.

With the growth of the Android ecosystem, you must use device farms with automation and performance testing practices to maintain app reliability and quality. It is also important to adopt strategies that not only improve the app’s performance but also create a positive brand reputation by providing a consistent end-user experience.

Finally, you must remember that device farm testing’s power to streamline testing processes and improve app integrity across fragmented devices will be a very powerful tool for you. Adding it to your testing pipeline will mean faster time to market, better app quality, and ultimately more satisfied end users.