Allow for testing of eternal BLE / BT devices, even if by mocking
My company develops and markets a BLE-connected device for stress management. The device is controlled by our Android and iOS apps.
I would REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY love to have a way to test the interaction between different API levels and smartphones and our device, both for Android and iOS. Lack of this is really the Achilles'heel of any Test Lab - style automated testing facility, and if this feature does not work properly, any bug on the rest of the app does not matter.
I have been thinking of mocking the device via an ESP32 or Raspberry Pi running its own test scripts, and I am sure that something like that can be achieved by a specialized app on a separate smartphone.
But I think that you at Google have the resources and know how to do something even better.
Creating virtual devices with a special Bluetooth / BLE implementation whose behavior can actually be scripted. Basically mocking the transport and hardware layer, and providing the same interface to the upper levels and to the app.
Imagine how many other clients you could get. basically any smart device manufacturer would use the feature - and as you are the owners of Android, your implementation of it would be the best.
Massimiliano Bariola
shared this idea
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Oscar Daniel Diaz Castillo commented
Mocking mechanisms are very useful for easy and effective testing, specially on network interfaces. It would be very nice to have a functionality like this.