scrcpy with autoadb

2 minute read
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This post is mirrored with permission from Parthasarathy’s blog

Control android device over adb

Required tools

ADB

Android Debug Bridge (adb) is a versatile command-line tool that lets you communicate with a device. The adb command facilitates a variety of device actions, such as installing and debugging apps, and it provides access to a Unix shell that you can use to run a variety of commands on a device.

scrcpy

This application provides display and control of Android devices connected on USB (or over TCP/IP). It does not require any root access. It works on GNU/Linux, Windows and macOS.

autoadb

This command-line tool allows to execute a command whenever a new device is connected to adb.

Both scrcpy and autoadb was developed by Romain Vimont.

Current setup

I have been using scrcpy for a long time, to test the applications in real devices and scrcpy let you do it without holding the device on your hand to control it.

The flow goes like this :

  • Connect the device
  • Fire up a terminal/cmd and run scrcpy
  • Your device screen is now mirrored in a window and let you control the device.

Limitations of this setup

  • I need to run the command scrcpy every time a device is connected, also need to maintain that terminal session, which means number of terminal sessions I need to maintain = number of devices connected
  • Simply running the command scrcpy works great if only a single device is connected. In case of multiple devices connected, we have to obtain the serial of each device by using adb devices, then use scrcpy -s device_serial for each device.

New Setup

Later I came to know about autoadb, which lets you auto run any command once a device is connected via adb.

autoadb printf 'Device connected\n'

This will print “Device connected” whenever a new device connected via adb

autoadb coupled with scrcpy will be something like this

autoadb scrcpy -s '{}'

{} replaces the serial of the device detected

Now I can start controlling the device right after connecting my devices to the system

What it solves ?

  • No need to maintain multiple terminal sessions, single session is enough for either single device or multiple devices
  • No need to obtain device specific serial via adb devices .
  • Just connect as many device as you want and there will be a scrcpy window running for each device

Bonus

Running autoadb as a service using systemd , brings down to ultimate setup with zero efforts (no commands required, no terminal sessions to maintain).

autoadb.service

[Unit]
Description=autoadb

[Service]
Type=simple
Environment=ADB="full_path_to_adb" #like "/home/$USER/Android/Sdk/platform-tools/adb"
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/autoadb scrcpy -s '{}'

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
  • Create the autoadb.service in ~/.config/systemd/user/
  • Start the service
systemctl --user start autoadb.service
  • Auto start the service on boot
systemctl --user enable autoadb.service
  • Check the status / logs of the service
systemctl --user status autoadb.service

And now whenever a device is connected via adb, you will be having a scrcpy window to control the device.

Enjoy 🎉