The Internet of Things (IoT) is getting smarter day by day through the convergence of digital and physical worlds. IoT is becoming more complex with the integration of multiple systems like sensors, platforms, mobile apps, web interfaces, and more. Hence, there is a need for holistic IoT testing strategy catering to these multiple endpoints to ensure the best customer experience.
The term ‘IoT’ represents a technology where connected devices are provided with proper intelligence to communicate with each other without any human intervention. As the number of IoT-enabled devices increases, the need for effective IoT deployments will also increase to guarantee proper interoperability and reliability.
Focused IoT service offerings ensure the best customer experience and keep operating costs under control. A comprehensive suite of services across the IoT spectrum includes various modules like device, network connectivity, cloud, and application. Let’s discuss each of these in detail.
The term ‘device’ is used for hardware which is designed for a particular purpose. It is used as the reference point for individual hardware components like sensors, off-the-shelf boards like Raspberry Pi, and custom units built using a number of components. IoT devices monitor real-world objects like home appliances, buildings, cars, inventory items, industrial equipment, and wearable devices.
As IoT technology matures, we will a see an increase in the frequency of releases for new devices and platforms. In this scenario, understanding the characteristics of these devices in terms of data capturing, data storage, data processing, connectivity, and power management plays an important role in building a strongly connected network.
At a broad level, devices can be divided into two categories:
Data processing can take place at the device level directly, or the data can be transferred to other gateways, cloud services or application for further processing. Data analysis at the edge of a network can help to reduce the upstream processing and storage requirements.
IoT devices rely on batteries or other wireless power sources (like solar power) for functioning. Based on the operation of the device, it might need to be put into a power-saving mode or sleep mode to expand the battery life.
To implement a properly connected device network, various types of testing are performed:
As the number of connected devices grows, flexible and responsive connectivity is required to meet the high expectations for network performance. Various network technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi, RFID, NFC, Ethernet, Cellular, Satellite, and LPWAN (LoRaWAN) are available, which help to connect with the device.
We can characterize connectivity technology in terms of power consumption, range, and bandwidth. In addition, each technology differs in terms of a balance between these characteristics.
Bluetooth, WiFi, RFID, and NFC are short-range connectivity solutions that provide high bandwidth but consume less power. Ethernet is a wired connection that provides range as per the wire length. Internet WiFi routers and Bluetooth in smartphones are examples of such technologies.
Cellular connectivity and satellite connectivity are meant for a broad range. Cellular is used when the device is within the range of the cell tower. Satellite provides a much wider range covering a wide area; for instance, in the middle of a dessert or an ocean. These technologies provide high bandwidth but consume high power at the same time. An example of such technology is a smartphone, which collects and transmits a huge amount of data including images, videos, documents and more.
Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) or LoRaWAN is used to increase the range and lower the power consumption at the same time. For example, this technology can be used in agriculture purpose when you need to collect moisture data of farming land.
With the help of network connectivity, devices can transfer the data to other devices or publish the data to services and applications in the cloud. To maintain efficient and smooth connectivity across the connected network, various types of testing are performed:
Device-to-Cloud connectivity testing: This testing is performed for seamless data capture, data transfer and data storage between the device and the cloud.
As the number of connected devices increases day by day, the volume of Big Data generated from these devices is also increasing. Cloud enables gathering a large amount of data and reduces the load on the internet infrastructure. Many tech giants like Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba, Google Cloud, Oracle, and more are building tools to provide a wide range of business technology solutions.
Let’s discuss some of the key types of testing in the cloud:
Cloud security testing: IoT generates a huge amount of data on a daily basis, and all this data is transferred to the cloud via a traditional internet connection or a dedicated link. This testing is performed to check the authenticity and reliability of the stored data.
As a part of IoT, devices are connected to perform certain applications to get the desired outcome. IoT is transforming our lives with many applications like smart home, smart city, wearables, connected car, connected healthcare, smart retail, smart supply chain, smart agriculture, industrial internet, smart energy, and more.
Each application has its own functionality and to check whether it is performing properly or not, we do the following types of testing:
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Development and Test Automation of a Connected Cross-platform Mobile Application
UI/UX Testing: As IoT is a widespread technology, this testing is performed across various platforms (Android, Linux, iOS, Windows). This testing is performed to check responsiveness, cross-device platform compatibility, and application design consistency. In a connected device network, creating a better UX specifies the functionality belonging to each device and creates device guidelines for multiple device types.
IoT is a network of different connected devices with various applications installed in them. These applications have many dependencies on various components and services while they are being developed. IoT Testing infrastructure provides real-time testing of data, security, reliability, compatibility, usability, and upgrade in smart devices. Virtualization for IoT helps in simulating hardware and software elements for testing the application with realistic data scenarios up to the required scale. It allows performing test automation more quickly and with less risk.
Improvement in operational excellence is the primary driver behind investments in business process improvements. IoT, IIoT, cloud computing, and big data analytics are some of the key technologies that an organization needs to focus on to achieve operational excellence. IoT systems can bring significant advantages to organizations, such as cost-cutting; risk reduction; improved service reliability; downtime elimination with real-time theft detection; instant root-cause analysis; and enhanced performance of the system.
eInfochips has 21 years of experience and expertise in silicon-to-software testing with CMMI Level 3 and ISO certified processes. Additionally, we have partnerships with external labs to ensure the appropriate testing infrastructure. And we have experienced engineers on digital technologies, test architects and in-house testing labs to provide cost reduction and faster time to market. For more info, check out our unified IoT test automation framework which enables end-to-end testing across devices, web, and mobile.
