Simulate low network connectivity for Android

Question

I would like to test my application for cases of low network connectivity  Except standing in the elevator  what is the best way to do this  I ve tried wrapping my phone in an aluminum foil  but it didn t help much   I need to test it on a real device  not in an emulator

User · Answer

Go Run   Run configurations  select your Android Application  and there go to Target tab  Do changes as shown in the figure

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There s a simple way of testing low speeds on a real device that seems to have been overlooked  It does require a Mac and an ethernet  or other wired  network connection   Turn on Wifi sharing on the Mac  turning your computer into a Wifi hotspot  connect your device to this  Use Netlimiter Charles Proxy or Network Link Conditioner  which you may have already installed  to control the speeds    For more details and to understand what sort of speeds you should test on check out  http   opensignal com blog 2016 02 05 go-slow-how-why-to-test-apps-on-poor-connections

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You are also able to test slow internet connectivity on an real android device   Tested with Samsung Galaxy S8   Android 8 0 0  Go to Settings -  Connection -  Mobile Network -  and under networkmode you can choose to only use 2G or 3G connections

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I m surprised nobody mentioned this  You can tether via Bluetooth  and separate them by ten  meters or less with obstacles   You ve got a real bad connection  No microwave  no elevator  no software needed

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You can use emulator for this  Take a look at this page  Android Emulator  Pay attention to next two arguments    -netdelay  lt delay gt      Set network latency emulation to      Default value is none  See   the table in Network Delay Emulation for supported  values   -netspeed  lt speed gt        Set network speed emulation to    Default value is full  See   the table in Network Speed Emulation for supported  values    Speeds for reference in increasing kbps                           UP       DOWN                   -------- ---------- gsm   GSM CSD         14 4       14 4 hscsd HSCSD           14 4       57 6 gprs  GPRS            28 8       57 6 umts  UMTS 3G        384 0      384 0 edge  EDGE EGPRS     473 6      473 6 hsdpa HSDPA         5760 0   13 980 0 lte   LTE         58 000 0  173 000 0 evdo  EVDO        75 000 0  280 000 0 full  No limit           8          8

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Very old post but I ll add my two cents  I have been VERY happy with this hardware product   https   apposite-tech com products linktropy-mini    which has enabled us to simulate a lot of real-world conditions  For a long time we had challenges troubleshooting various things that would work in emulator or with airplane mode    We have several different profiles setup from zero-connectivity to various stages of marginal connectivity  with different degrees of latency  packet loss  and bit-errors  The great thing about it is we can change these on the fly without having to relaunch the app in an emulator  The price has been entirely worth it for our shop  and it s dead simple to use

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I found netlimiter4 to be the best solution for throttling data to emulators   It provides for granular control through a decent gui and gives you graphical feedback on the data throughput to each process  Currently in a free beta  screenshot  http   www netlimiter com products nl4  There are apps available on the play store to throttle to actual devices but they require root I cant provide any advice as to how well they work  if at at all - YMMV    search for bradybound on the play store  I can t post more than one link

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Facebook built something called Augmented Traffic Control  A brief summary from their GitHub page   Augmented Traffic Control  ATC  is a tool to simulate network conditions  It allows controlling the connection that a device has to the internet  Developers can use ATC to test their application across varying network conditions  easily emulating high speed  mobile  and even severely impaired networks  Aspects of the connection that can be controlled include   bandwidth latency packet loss corrupted packets packets ordering  In order to be able to shape the network traffic  ATC must be running on a device that routes the traffic and sees the real IP address of the device  like your network gateway for instance  This also allows any devices that route through ATC to be able to shape their traffic  Traffic can be shaped unshaped using a web interface allowing any devices with a web browser to use ATC without the need for a client application   You can find it here on GitHub  https   github com facebook augmented-traffic-control They have also written a blog post about it  https   code facebook com posts 1561127100804165 augmented-traffic-control-a-tool-to-simulate-network-conditions

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have you tried this  Settings - Networks - More - Mobile Networks - Network mode - Select preferred network  2G for example     Another method i used was mentioned above  Connect via iPhone hot spot   Hope this helps

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Since iPhones developer option apply on wifi tethering  you can get an iPhone which has iOS 6 and above  and has been set to use for developments with the xcode   set it to emulate the desired network profile  connect your Android device to its hotspot

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Easy way to test your application with low bad connection in emulator   Go Run   Run configurations  select your Android Application  and there go to Target tab  Look Emulator launch parameters  Here  you can easy modify Network Speed and Network Latency

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Years old but hey  I ll chime in with my foolproof method with Genymotion    Download the Charles free trial  http   www charlesproxy com download  Install it  ClickProxy - gt  Throttle Settings  Set up your HTTP throttled speeds Close that window  Click Proxy - gt  Throttling to enable the throttle Open up a Genymotion emulator Open the wifi settings Long press the enabled wifi connection Click Modify Network Click Show Advanced Options Set Proxy to Manual Set the Proxy hostname to 10 0 3 2 Set the Port to 8888 Click Save   And now your network will be throttled

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Just go to Android device monitor from Android studio   then DDMS -  Emulator Control There will be Speed and Latency properties

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Open terminal inAndroid Studio and Go to       Android sdk tools   emulator  executable should be available here  Run   emulator -netdelay  delay in millis  -avd  emulator device name   Ex     emulator -netdelay 60000 -avd Nexus 5 API 21 Now build your app and install it in emulator  Run your scenario in app      Make sure you have your code changes in app that sets timeout to your request and handles that

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as suggested by  VicVu Charles  or any other proxy tool  is an easier way to go  But I would Like to add that you can do this with your device also  not just genymotion or other emulators  Process will be the same   Modify your device emulator s wifi setting to use manual proxy  And then Set the Proxy hostname  amp  port a  set the hostname as ip of your system  get the ip of your pc mac using ifconfig ifconfig  b  set the port number of genymotion  check the proxy settings in charles   PS  Your device emulator MUST be using the same wifi since the ip you are using will most probably be the private ip

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Or on an actual device you can go to Settings -  Mobile Networks -  Preferred network types and chose the slowest available    Of course this is very limited  but for some test- purposes it might be enough

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I know it s an old question but     Some phones nowadays have a setting to utilize 2G only  It s perfect for simulating slow internet on a real device

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I m using mitmproxy HTTPS proxy  https   mitmproxy org   Mitmproxy is an open source proxy application that allows intercepting HTTP and HTTPS connections between any HTTP S  client  It allows to monitor  capture and alter these connections in realtime  Change request  response  header        Additionally you can intercept different requests   e g  response delay py   from mitmproxy import http from time import sleep  def response flow  http HTTPFlow  - gt  None      sleep 5 0    Then executing this comment delays all responses from the server   mitmproxy --cert    asdf at   cert pem --scripts response delay py      In my app I m using certificate pinning  so you need to add the certificate  private   public       cat private key public key   cert pem   You can find a simple Tutorial here    You can find other scripting examples here

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Do you want to test for no network connection  or just a slow network connection  If the former  you can go to Settings  gt  Wireless  amp  networks  gt  Airplane mode and turn Airplane mode on  That will let you test network unavailability on an actual device

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I needed to throttle low internet on AndroidTV native device and based on what I have read  the most suitable solution was to limit the internet access directly in my router  Go to router settings  locally it is smth like 192 168 0 1  -  set up DHCP server  if it s not running  -  choose IP address of a device and set the restriction

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I have one strategy to settle your problem  You can use the application of proxy to modify or monitor your net status  e g  Charles   You ought to change the default config of the Charles like the following picture I posted       And finally  you will discover the net status has been shaped into lower pace

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UPDATE on the Android studio AVD    open AVD manager create edit AVD click advanced settings select your preferred connectivity setting   No microwaves or elevators

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This may sound a little crazy  but a microwave oven serves as a microwave shield  Therefore  putting your device inside a microwave oven  DO NOT turn on the microwave oven while your device is inside   will cause your signal strength to drop significantly  It definitely beats standing inside an elevator

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Update for Android Studio v 1 5 or greater As  LouMorda mentioned in a comment below that the Emulator tab mentioned in original post has been removed in Android Studio v 1 5  Now They ve placed these settings in Simulator Settings in AVD Manager  To access these settings   Select Tools - gt  Android - gt  AVD Manager Click the Edit AVD button  pencil icon  The Network Settings can be accessed after clicking the Show Advanced Settings button  Here is a screenshot of how it may appear   Original Post For anyone using Android Studio IDE   Go to Run - gt  Edit Configurations Select Android Application - gt   Your App  Select Emulator tab Here you can change different values for Network Speed internet speed  and Network Latency  delay  to simulate different speeds and latencies etc  Alternatively  you can enter various arguments in Additional command line options text field as mentioned in  inazaruk s answer  The screenshot below describes how this Run Configuration screen looks like   I know its a bit late to answer to this question  but i hope this helps others facing similar issues  Edit For anyone using eclipse  see  Abhi s answer below

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for and mac OS user you can use Network Link Conditioner which could be downloaded from apple  set it as a AP on mac and any divices could connected it   you can either use facebook open source tools ATC  http   facebook github io augmented-traffic-control

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In Android Studio  while running an emulator   1- Hit settings button at the bottom of the emulator sidebar  2- Go to Cellular  3- Set Network Type

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I was struggling with this problem for half a day  finally I came to this solution    Testing on a real device doesn t make much sense overall as you have to go through a lot to make it work  The only logical way to achieve real testing is to make your phone connect to a low quality cellular network  like EDGE  if your phone company provides it  You can try to do this by dialing     4636     in the phone app The original Android emulator is way too slow for testing and doesn t achieve more than the solution above    The best way to do this is using Genymotion  It s an Android emulator with much better performance than the original AVDs and the version for personal use is free     After you created your virtual device in Genymotion  just go through this tutorial to set a proxy for the device   Run a proxy server on your host machine that simulates bad network conditions  like Crapify or Toxiproxy  I only tested the former  and you re good to go   Update    I just realized you can pick the very same strategy with real devices too  I feel like an idiot for not realizing it sooner  Just start a Crapify proxy on your computer  set your phone proxy to your computer s local address and voila  you ve got crappy internet on your phone

[android] Simulate low network connectivity for Android

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