The TV lab cloud farms never built.
Real Samsung, LG, Roku, and Apple TV panels on your wall — and the boxes under them: cable set-top boxes, Xbox, PlayStation. Live video and audio over HDMI capture, element-level automation on the platforms that allow it, and remote-control-level testing on every app — including store apps you don't own.
Every screen in the living room.
Smart TV test automation where the platform exposes an engine, black-box remote-and-video control where it doesn't — every panel and box on one lab network.
Samsung Tizen
Native driver over sdb and the Chrome DevTools Protocol. Remote keys, app launch and install, live video, and full element-level automation on debuggable web apps. Models from 2015 onward.
LG webOS
Native driver over SSAP and CDP, including pointer gestures webOS supports natively. Same two-level control as Tizen, with a published model-year matrix back to 2014.
Roku
WebDriver-style automation over Roku's External Control Protocol: remote keys, channel install and deep-linking, element queries on the app UI tree, media-player state, and screenshots.
Apple TV
Driven through the same pipeline as iOS devices — install builds, run XCUITest, and control tvOS apps on real Apple TV hardware in the rack.
Android TV & Fire TV
Android-based TVs and sticks join the lab like any Android device — ADB control, automation frameworks, and app installs work out of the box.
Any HDMI source, black-box
Cable set-top boxes, Xbox, PlayStation, or any other box with an HDMI output: a capture node streams the real screen and audio and drives it like a physical remote. Same for DRM-protected playback. No debugging access needed.
Chromecast devices are discovered on the lab network automatically and join test sessions for cast-target coverage.
Weighing a cloud vendor for TV? See how RobusTest compares to BrowserStack for smart TV testing.
Black-box for any app. White-box for yours.
Works on every app
Connect to the TV, launch or close any app — store apps, native apps, or your own — send remote keys and pointer gestures, and watch the live screen with audio in your browser. No debugging access required, so competitor apps and retail content are fair game.
- Live screen + audio via HDMI capture, ~100–150 ms on LAN
- Full remote control: D-pad, media keys, text entry
- App launch, close, install, and deep-linking
- DRM-protected playback visible — it's a real capture of a real panel
For your own web apps
Developer-signed, debuggable web apps get element-level control through the Chrome DevTools Protocol: click buttons, type into fields, read page state, run assertions, and capture the in-app DOM — the same white-box precision you expect from browser automation.
- Click, type, evaluate, and read text by element
- Assertions against real page state, not screenshots
- In-app DOM capture for debugging failures
- Drive it from WebDriver-compatible clients or Maestro-style YAML flows
Requires Developer Mode on the TV. Store and native apps can't be inspected — they're driven black-box instead.
Smart TV app testing, answered straight.
The questions every streaming and OTT team asks before they build or buy a TV lab — with the answers the platforms actually allow.
Can smart TV app testing be automated?
Yes, on two levels. Every panel and box takes remote-key automation with the live screen and audio as the oracle. Samsung Tizen and LG webOS panels from 2020 onward, Roku, Apple TV, and Android/Fire TV also take element-level automation — your own web app on Tizen or webOS gets DevTools-grade control, Roku gets its UI tree, tvOS gets XCUITest, Android TV gets the frameworks you already use on phones.
What is OTT app testing, and how is it different from mobile?
OTT app testing runs your streaming app on the set-top boxes and smart TVs your subscribers own. Nothing is touched: navigation is focus-driven by a remote, playback and DRM are the core feature rather than an edge case, and the browser engine inside a TV never updates after it ships — so coverage is set by model year, not OS version.
Can you test an OTT app you don't own?
Yes. Store apps, a competitor's app, the platform launcher, and DRM-protected playback are all driven black-box: remote keys in, real screen and audio out over HDMI capture. No developer mode or debug access is needed, so nothing about the app has to change.
Which smart TV platforms can be tested on real devices?
Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, Roku, Apple TV (tvOS), Android TV and Fire TV as first-class devices, plus any HDMI source — cable set-top boxes, Xbox, PlayStation — as a captured black box. All of it sits on one lab network inside your premises, so unreleased builds and subscriber test accounts never leave the building.
Support you can look up, not guess at.
A TV's browser engine is fixed at manufacture — neither Samsung nor LG updates it — so automation capability is set by model year. Remote control and live video work on every supported year; element automation depends on the engine.
Samsung Tizen
| Model years | OS | Support |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 – 2026 | Tizen 5.5 – 10.0 | Full element automation |
| 2017 – 2019 | Tizen 3.0 – 5.0 | Core automation (older engine) |
| 2015 – 2016 | Tizen 2.3 – 2.4 | Remote + live video only |
LG webOS
| Model years | OS | Support |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 – 2026 | webOS 5.x – 26 | Full element automation |
| 2016 – 2019 | webOS 3.x – 4.x | Core automation (older engine) |
| 2014 – 2015 | webOS 1.x – 2.x | Remote + live video only |
Recommended baseline for full automation coverage: 2020-or-newer panels — the configuration we validate against.
One small node per TV wall.
Capture
An HDMI grabber (or camera, for panels without capture access) feeds the TV's real output — video and audio — into the node.
Stream
The node hardware-encodes the feed and streams it straight to the tester's browser at roughly 100–150 ms glass-to-glass — no plugins, no client install.
Control
Key presses and automation commands travel back over the same connection and reach the TV through its native protocol — or a USB HID remote for anything else.
Web vitals, on a television.
OTT performance testing only tells you something when it runs on the real panel. During a live session the node samples your app's actual behavior on the TV — not an emulator — and streams it to the tester once a second.
- In-app frame rate and system CPU load
- App and device memory, with DOM node count as a leak signal
- Largest Contentful Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift — on TV hardware
- Stream QoE panel so testers can separate app slowness from network slowness
Documentation
From the blog
- Smart TV app testing: what changes when there is no touchscreen Focus, remotes, developer mode, and five automation paths.
- TVs don't turn themselves on Why a TV lab needs Wake-on-LAN and a phone lab doesn't.
- A field guide to webOS 26 The quirks no document warns you about.
- Your TV test passed. There was no sound. Why the framebuffer is not the whole story.
- The TV browser is frozen the day it ships Testing against a browser that never updates.
Put your OTT app on a real TV wall.
Tell us which platforms you ship to — we'll spec the TV nodes, capture hardware, and panel list for your lab.