I am trying to develop an wifi peer to peer application in android(4.+).
The problem here is how to test it.
I tried to run that application in android emulator. there was no option to configure wifi in the settings menu, i also tired to enable wifi using the dev tools application form the emulator but it didn't work, And through all my googling over 3 days and i found that Android emulator is not supported the Wifi.
So i opted for androidx86 4.0eeepc using virtual box and tired to add devices both wifi and bluetooth (my app uses both bluetooth and wifi) but only bluetooth device got added and it did not work. But my virtual box detected the wifi and bluetooth devices. I just couldnt get them work with the virtual machine.
I tried everything like manually adding the addresses using terminal emulator app in androidx86 and used netcfg through the android commandline but neither of them worked.
Please suggest and guide me on the correct path to run these kind of applications that use wifi and bluetooth in android.
Thanks in advance.
First, be sure you enabled WiFi Direct in the Android settings for the two virtualbox instances:
Settings --> Wireless & Networks --> More... --> Wi-Fi direct
It has been stated as working once that hurdle was overcome, and I'm sure many have experienced the same...just be sure to enable wifi direct
I would have tried exactly what you've already tried by naturally moving from the emulator to the androidx86 project. Although unreliable, I'd recommend looking at and finagling this, if you haven't yet seen it: Android: Simulate WiFi in the emulator? and How to disable/enable network, switch to Wifi in Android emulator? most likely wouldn't have full out success but may be enough to let you know that it works or would work.
As far as testing WiFi-Direct/WiFiP2P without you yourself having a device/s, I would recommend:
Trying out some of the fiddling as mentioned above. And read through tons of logs.
You could always crowd source it to friends, or release an apk on a forum for a small group of testers.
Of course, both of those options are not ideal, seamless, or fast. So, I'd definitely hope you get VirtualBox VMs of AndroidX86 4.0 running as it should once you check that setting and pair up the WiFi APs :-)
A near future solution:
This might be something to look into in near future.
Real devices are hosted by Samsung and screens are streamed to your PC.
http://developer.samsung.com/remoteTestLab.do
According to an email responded by samsung, which I sent to them earlier.
They only have 2 devices (Galaxy Nexus) running on Android v4.0 at the moment.
Unfortunately they are not physically close to each other. (One in Korea, One in Poland)
But they are planning to upgrade existing Galaxy S2 to v4.0.
Because recently Samsung have released v4.0 upgrade for S2.
Once they done that, there will be plenty of v4.0 phones.
And you can ask them which 2 phones are physically close so you can test Wifi Direct.
--------------------------- EDIT ---------------------------------
There are plenty of ICS devices there now, which you can test P2P.
Check with them which 2 are physically near to each other.
Per the docs:
Each instance of the emulator runs behind a virtual router/firewall
service that isolates it from your development machine's network
interfaces and settings and from the internet.
You have to use Network Redirection, as described in the Developer Docs. In essence, you forward specific ports using ADB. Therefore you cannot test certain things like broadcast messages.
I have tried doing what you are trying to do, and-- while I won't say it is impossible (anything is possible in computing with enough time, money, and persistence)-- I wasted a lot of time on it. You cannot treat the Android emulator as a normal network peer-to-peer device. As far as I have been able to find, it is a fork of QEMU, and that is just how the QEMU emulator is implemented.
QEMU itself does support TUN/TAP bridging, but I was never able to get it working with the Android emulator. If you want to go that route, you may want to investigate running Android in the QEMU emulator, rather than in the SDK's emulator (I see you are already trying a similar approach with VirtualBox).
Unfortunately the best way to test a peer-to-peer networking program in Android is with physical devices at this time-- unless your app can suffice with the port forwarding method.
See Also: Issue 26:Emulated Androids should be able to communicate via TCP, and Google
(Repeating here my answer elsewhere.)
In theory, linux (the kernel underlying android) has mac80211_hwsim driver, which simulates WiFi. It can be used to set up several WiFi devices (an acces point, and another WiFi device, and so on), which would make up a WiFi network.
It's useful for testing WiFi programs under linux. Possibly, even under user-mode linux or other isolated virtual "boxes" with linux.
In theory, this driver could be used for tests in the android systems where you don't have a real WiFi device (or don't want to use it), and also in some kind of android emulators. Perhaps, one can manage to use this driver in android-x86, or--for testing--in android-x86 run in VirtualBox.
Related
My MacBook computer battery is broken and somehow it has not enough power to power device by usb-c adapter so I cannot connect anything and only have to use android emulator. But I need to debug on real device while testing some ocr sdk that obviously don't want to recognize anything in android emulator virtual scene. I asked other question about that but still I am puzzled by this inability to use WIFI for usb debugging because sdk runs fine on my phone but to debug using fabric and APK deployment is really horrible dev experience and productivity.
Is there some way I can setup WIFI debugging without cable at all... Maybe I need to root my device but again how to do it without cable, it seems impossible either way. I feel in like in dead and but still asking question here. I have computer and phone but cannot connect them for debugging by wifi.
Afraid I don't have an easy wireless solution. The closest thing I could find is that android wearables may have a debug over bluetooth feature, but it's built to route through another (wired) android device.
There is likely a feasible wired solution though- you can hook the device to a powered hub and the hub to the computer.
You could also use an adapter of sorts. They were built for printers and such before everything came with wifi and could get a proper wireless setup going without either side realizing they aren't directly connected over USB (OS still knows that some funky usb drivers are loaded and a separate application may need to run to connect), but again more hardware. A decent Wireless "USB Device Server" seems to run ~$100 while wired ones are cheaper, but not as cheap as a powered usb hub.
If you have another machine, you can use it to enable wireless debugging on your Android phone. See https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/adb#wireless. Once wireless debugging is enabled, you can connect to it from your Mac without using USB. You still need USB for enabling wireless debugging though, but you can do it from a different machine. This should work on all Android phones, root is not required.
Update [2021]:
Things have developed since this question was asked. WiFi Debugging is a first class option now on newer devices. See https://developer.android.com/studio/run/device.html#wireless for details.
Goal: Test android app on a physical device with various network connectivity issues (Offline, Slow 3G etc). Android Emulator is not an option for my use case.
Steps I have tried: (Remote Debugging)
Connect my phone to my computer and open the app on my phone.
In chrome "Remote devices" I select my phone and click on inspect for the app opened on my phone. Once the Developer Tools window opens I can play with my app from chrome.
In the network tab I can see the throttling options but when I try the offline option or any other option to slow down the network it does not seem to work.
The offline/slow 3G option works for a normal website but not when using remote devices. I wanted to see if anyone has tried this option before and if it worked for them and I would appreciate suggestions for better alternatives to test an android app with various network settings other than using chrome remote devices?
Other options I have come across are installing a proxy app on PC/Mac and configure networking throttling in the app and then create a wifi hotspot and connect my phone with it. This is possible but it would be tricky with the tools we use so I was looking for a more elegant solution.
The "remote devices" of chrome won't affect your native app. It will not even affect another opened tab other than the one you are "inspecting" and throttling. If you really need to throttle your device's network connection you should use a proxy. A good and easy to handle proxy is Charles web debugging. The free version will cover your needs if you are willing to reconnect every 30 mins. But for sure I recommend you purchase a license since this tool will be always helpful and developers also need to make a living ;)
Here is an example of setting up Charles as a proxy for an android device.
It's a little unclear from your question, but I'm assuming that you're using Remote Debugging to run a webpage on an Android device, and you want to profile the webpage from a laptop/desktop connected to the Android.
One workaround is to use https://www.webpagetest.org/easy. This actually runs your webpage on a real Motorola G device in Virginia with a Slow 3G connection. It gives you a detailed report on your loading performance, just like the DevTools Performance panel.
One of the DevTools team members said that Remote Debugging + Network Throttling should work, but neither of us has tried it recently.
Device : Google Nexus 5 (Un-rooted)
Host Machine : Window 7
I want to Access Android Device as a Modem (using COM or Modem Port) and eventually pass AT Commands using HyperTerminal/Teraterm.
So after connecting the device to a Windows Box, The Device gets detected under Device Manager, but doesn't show any COM Port (other than the default COM0).
On right click and update driver, It shows it cannot find drivers.
I have tried the following options, but no luck with any.
Tried this on a rooted Nexus 5, but doesn't expose which /dev/smdX to use. Tried all combinations, didn't work.
Tried the Google USB Drivers from the Google Android's Website. No changes.
From here. I Installed drivers from LG Electronics, No changes in COM Port.
Universal Naked Driver helped me get to ADB Shell interface, but
thats not what I want.
In all of the Above procedure USB Debugging was enabled (Just saying).
I also heard the phone has to put into Modem mode to fire AT Commands.
If so, How do I do that ?
Or Is this a device driver Issue ?
Conclusion:
I want to access the Modem of the Android Device and fire AT Commands to it.
Could you please tell what am I missing ?
Any help on this would be really appreciated.
It's difficult to give an exact answer to this question, because it depends on how the manufacturer has implemented the device drivers. Unfortunately, there is a lot of information that isn't in the public domain.
It is possible, that the manufacturer has implemented some code to convert the device to a modem. Doing this yourself is device-specific, and proprietary. You might be able to get hold of a converter, for example bundled with the manufacturer's dashboard application for the PC, if such a thing exists.
Some devices don't expose the modem port at all. They may be visible as a network adapter, or as an always-connected LAN connection. If the device is visible as a network adapter, then you can access it via Windows Mobile Broadband API, or via MBIM for some newer devices.
To check if the device is visible as a network adapter, and get information about it, open a cmd box and type
netsh mbn show interfaces
Windows Mobile Broadband API doesn't give as many details as a good AT command set, but performs basically the same functions. MBIM is an industry standard interface with similar functionality, available on the Windows 8+ desktop via the Mobile Broadband DeviceServices API, for devices that support it.
If the device shows as an always-on LAN connection, there is probably a proprietary, high level interface for mobile functionality.
Driver behaviour can differ for different operating systems. If you have the chance to try the device on Windows Vista, 7 and 8, you may see different behaviour.
I don't expect you to correct my code, since it should be working, at least works on emulator. Unfortunately gives different output on the devices. My question is:
How to debug in such cases, when the device is not working as the emulator, and what could cause that (device model, a custom ROM?)
I heard some rumors some time ago, about possibility using the device instead an emulator somehow connected to the SDK. Could you also confirm or deny that?
You'll find it's not uncommon to find little quirks between devices. Many developers will have several physical devices to test their software on.
You can find information on using a physical device for debugging (including using it inside Eclipse, just as you would the emulator) on the Android website: http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html
Yes you can do that. Just put your device into debugging mode, and connect it to the computer with the micro-usb port on the device. You will also need to download the drivers from the manufactures website.
I was trying to connect an ad-hoc network from Nexus S. However I realized the unpleasant news that Android does not support ad-hoc networking. After a quite amount of research, I found a work around which is:
a) Root the device and
b) Copy wpa_supplicant to system bin.
I'm totally unsure how much successful that would be. Being fairly apprehensive to further this method, I returned back to research and, unfortunately, ended up in vain.
Has anyone dealt this before? Is there any fix for ad-hoc networking in Android?
While Adnroid (at least 2.3) does not have interface for setting up Ad-hoc or Master modes, sometimes (like on my SE Xperia X10) you can just use iwconfig (need to be copied to device manually) and set it to Ad-hoc mode.
I use it sometimes, having scripts that ad-hoc mode on and off (there is even dhcp server configured on the device)
Well, I am facing the problem too. and was googling around and could not find anything worth sharing with you. Just a work around, Use ConnectifyME to create an AP in your PC and then you can use that AP (can say virtual AP) to share internet on your android device.
Hope this helps you.
There is a GUI program called Virtual router that is open source program and could be used to create WiFi, it uses virtual Wi-Fi feature in Windows 7.
For more description have a look at my post:
http://algorithmsea.blogspot.in/2012/12/ad-hoc-network-from-android-devices-i.html
adhoc isn't supported in android os but typing 2 lines DOS commands should solve the problem.
I tested this and it works.. type these 2 lines on DOS COMMAND PROMPT
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=NAME key=PASSWORD
netsh wlan start hostednetwork
I found this here : For Android users:Internet via adhoc is working without any app! : http://androiditnow.blogspot.com/2012/09/for-android-usersinternet-via-adhoc-is.html#.UXV0bUqlrGI