What is IoT Testing? Benefits, Best Practices, & Tools

These days, everything seems to be connected. All of our devices — even our appliances — are online and linked together across the digital landscape. This connection has grown increasingly important in our daily lives because it communicates, transfers data back and forth, and ultimately makes our lives easier. 

At least, that is the goal. 

This connection — known as the Internet of Things (IoT) — can grow increasingly more complex as more information and more devices are added to it. To ensure your IoT is secure, seamless and functions reliably, continuous testing throughout the development process is strongly recommended. 

In this blog, we will discuss what IoT and IoT testing is, benefits of and best practices for IoT testing, and some helpful tools to help you in your IoT testing efforts. 

What is IoT?

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the method of connection that links common, everyday physical devices to the internet. These devices can range from household appliances like refrigerators to smart watches to our phones. 

The IoT allows those devices to share data with each other to make our lives easier or more seamless. The IoT is comprised of three primary aspects: 

• Devices — These are the “things” of the Internet of Things. They are the physical pieces of technology that are connected to the internet. 

• Communications — Whether through Wi-Fi or cellular networks, the path by which the devices communicate is a critical component for sharing data. 

• Data Processing — As the data is shared between devices, it must process efficiently so each device connected to the IoT remains up to date. 

What is IoT Testing?

IoT testing is an approach to QA testing that includes checking a device(s) performance, security, and functionality. IoT testing seeks to ensure that IoT devices meet specified requirements and work as expected. Testing the security of IoT devices is especially crucial because the very nature of the IoT network is sharing sensitive information.  

Today, many businesses depend on IoT testing automation and performance testing tools to identify and solve issues before the software is in the hands of customers. 

IoT Testing Benefits

Incorporating IoT testing in the current state of digital interconnectivity is important because it helps your team stay in line with the increasing usage of IoT applications and devices. The IoT is not going anywhere — it is only going to expand and become more ingrained in our daily lives. 

That means the benefits of IoT testing are directly reflected in both your software functionality and your customers’ satisfaction. 

Reliability

Because IoT devices communicate with each other and — in a sense — rely on each other, testing them is crucial for preparing them for any expected (or unforeseen) conditions. Whether your IoT devices come in the form of industrial supply chain or healthcare systems, simulating a wide range of user behaviors and environments helps uncover comprised functionality. This prevents system downtime and ensures performance consistency.  

Interoperability 

The very nature of IoT devices is that they work together. But that does not just happen magically. For these devices to communicate seamlessly, testing interoperability is perhaps the most important aspect of IoT testing. It validates that they are working with each other as needed, thereby enhancing the user experience and enabling IoT flexibility. 

Security 

Protecting one device from a cyber-attack is important, but protecting multiple, inter-connected devices is exponentially more important. Robust and thorough IoT testing will identify potential security vulnerabilities so that they can be addressed before release. This will protect your users’ privacy, prevent data breaches, and ensure your web of devices remains intact and unharmed. 

User Experience 

At the end of the day, the way your users interact with your web of IoT devices is how success will be defined. A satisfied customer is a returning customer, so continuously testing your IoT devices will help you identify areas of opportunity or innovation; improving intuitiveness, enhancing functionality, and maintaining device responsivity are all ways to keep your customer happy.  

Compliance & Standards 

Since the use of IoT devices can span a wide range of industries, it is important that they adhere to any compliance or regulatory standards. These standards are industry-specific and can often be unique to one another, but ensuring that the IoT devices within a respective industry can clear any legal hurdles solidifies their reliability and security in the users’ eyes.  

Agility, Speed, and Performance: Customers Respond to Adopting Continuous Testing

Having a powerful continuous testing tool is the best way to execute IoT testing. Exposing risks earlier and receiving immediate feedback will go a long way in creating a reliably functional IoT. Learn how BlazeMeter can speed digital transformation and shift quality left directly from satisfied BlazeMeter customers — the results and reviews speak for themselves!

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IoT Testing Best Practices

Whether you are unfamiliar with IoT testing or are seeking a refinement of your current strategy, here are a few best practices to guide you: 

Strategic Planning

First, you need to understand the IoT ecosystem you will be working with. Identify all the components that will require testing. You will need to define your objectives, which can be done by outlining what you want to get out of each test. Then, create real-world scenarios for your IoT testing that span device operations, device failure, and device communication between other devices and networks.  

Real-World Conditions 

Your IoT testing cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach because your users will be from different locations using different behaviors on different devices. Set up your testing environments to simulate real-world usage in a variety of conditions like signal strengths, locations, network variability, and differing user behaviors. 

Continuous Testing 

Incorporate IoT testing into your CI/CD pipeline so you can receive continuous, immediate feedback when issues arise. Leverage regression testing to tell you whether or not previous functionalities are negatively affected by updates or changes to the system. Constantly monitor and analyze test results to gain insights into your process and find areas of improvement as you proceed.  

Varied Testing Types 

IoT testing should be comprising of several different types of testing to be sure you cover all your bases. Testing early, often, and repeatedly is the closest you can come to guaranteeing a high-quality, reliable web of IoT devices. Security testing will help safeguard your ecosystem against any threats. Performance testing will ensure your system can handle varying and dramatic shifts in load. And continuously testing compatibility will ensure your IoT devices are communicating with each other as they should. 

Tools for IoT Testing

Now that you have a general understanding of what IoT testing is and how best to set yourself up for success, below are IoT testing tools that you can leverage for better testing. 

BlazeMeter 

The industry standard for performance testing, BlazeMeter offers a wide variety of testing capabilities that can cover all aspects of IoT testing. It is also extremely open source friendly and integrates seamlessly with the favorite tools of developers. Most importantly, though, is that it supports MQTT — the protocol for IoT.

Selenium

Though it is primarily a tool for browser automation, it can also be used to test IoT device interfaces. It is particularly effective for IoT devices with web-based UIs or control panels. 

Gatling 

A great option for high-performance load testing, Gatling is designed for web applications — which makes it a natural fit for testing the scalability and performance of IoT ecosystems under stress.