Smart home devices are everywhere in a modern house nowadays and range from products such as doorbells, home security, lighting, door locks, smoke detectors etc. Smart home technology is the use of devices in the home which are connected via a network. It uses devices and associated applications that can be remotely monitored, controlled, accessed and provides services based on users needs and expectations.
The core function of smartphones and wireless technology is to sync applications through a network. A smart home device communicates through a hub that can be remotely controlled by a smartphone. Several similar devices make up a connected ecosystem(smart home), and they mutually communicate to transmit data and enable decisions.
To ensure the smart devices work as specified, companies need to ensure the entire process includes activating the device, testing of the associated applications, network environment and their communications to bring the expected result function properly.
Smart home device testing must cover the entire product which includes groups, sub systems, components and services. Smart home technology uses many techniques via the internet commonly known as IOT (Internet of Things) such as RFID: Radio Frequency Code, EPC: Electronic Product Code, NFC: Near Field Communication, Bluetooth, Z-Wave, WiFi, Zigbee etc.
An outsourced QA company can help the clients implement a smart test approach where expectations, conditions and human actions can coordinate together and bring a better result. A smart QA company can follow some best approaches like testing the ability of different software to communicate in any given situation, ability of testing different devices to communicate with one another, test the environment where a situation triggers smart devices into action, test the necessity of a human action to trigger a response from a smart device, replacing repetitive human activities with bots, automating repetitive tests etc.
Since the application is connected with many devices of different hardware, testing each device's hardware and API integration is a big challenge here. To address this, a dynamic test app can be created, with all basic functionalities required to test app integration with the hardware. One of the best approaches to simplify the areas of testing is to categorize the areas as Hardware - Software Performance testing, Cross-Domain Compatibility testing, Security testing, User experience testing, Exploratory testing, functionality testing and Exploratory testing.
A QA company will also help overcome several challenges that come with Testing Smart Home Products. Replication of test environment is expensive as there are different groups, subsystems with 3rd party units, components and services and is risky when the user cannot access a single dependent which could affect testing of entire system. Therefore, collecting correct data for different systems requires a lot of effort and multiple teams. The other challenges involved in testing devices are, compatibility, complexity, connectivity, power problems, security, privacy, and safety, A good QA company with experience in these multiple platforms will be able to set up the test environment faster and be able to address these challenges.