Roku TV With Appium

Tutorial To Run Your First Test On LambdaTest

As smart TVs continue to grow in popularity, relying solely on manual testing is no longer sufficient. Automating Roku TV testing provides broader device coverage, enhances user experience by validating remote-based navigation, and eliminates repetitive manual tasks. It also helps uncover issues earlier in the development cycle, ensuring a smooth and consistent experience across different Roku TV models. In this guide, you will learn how to configure and run your Roku TV automation testing scripts with Appium Roku WebDriver on LambdaTest Real Device Cloud platform.

To enable it for your organization, please contact us via 24×7 chat support or you can also drop a mail to support@lambdatest.com.

Objective

By the end of this topic, you will be able to:

Set up an environment for testing your Apps using Roku TV with Appium Roku WebDriver.
Understand and configure the core capabilities required for your Roku WebDriver test suite.
Explore the advanced features of LambdaTest.

Sample repo

All the code samples in this documentation can be found on LambdaTest's Github Repository. You can either download or clone the repository to quickly run your tests. View on GitHub

Prerequisites

Before you can start performing App automation testing with Appium, you would need to follow these steps:

You have access to LambdaTest username and accessKey. If you have not registered yet, you can do the same by visiting our website. You will be able to access the credentials in the LambdaTest Profile
Install the latest Python build from the official website. We recommend using the latest version.
Make sure pip is installed in your system. You can install pip from pip documentation.

Supported Models

Device	OS Version
Roku Ultra	11
Roku Express	11

Run your first test

1. Upload your application

Upload your Roku TV application (.zip file) to the LambdaTest servers using our REST API. You need to provide your Username and AccessKey in the format Username:AccessKey in the cURL command for authentication. Make sure to add the path of the appFile in the cURL request. Here is an example cURL request to upload your app using our REST API:

Using App File from System:

curl -u "undefined:undefined" -X POST "https://manual-api.lambdatest.com/app/upload/realDevice" -F "appFile=@"/Users/macuser/Downloads/roku-sample-app.zip"" -F "name="roku_app""

tip

If you do not have any .zip file, you can run your sample tests on LambdaTest by using our sample 🔗 RokuTV app.
Response of above cURL will be a JSON object containing the APP_URL of the format - lt://APP123456789123456789 and will be used in the next step.

2. Clone the sample project

Clone the LambdaTest’s LT-appium-rokutv and navigate to the code directory as shown below:

git clone https://github.com/LambdaTest/LT-appium-rokutv
cd LT-appium-rokutv

3. Set up your authentication

Make sure you have your LambdaTest credentials with you to run test automation scripts on LambdaTest. To obtain your access credentials, purchase a plan or access the Automation Dashboard. Then, set LambdaTest Username and Access Key in environment variables with following commands.

Linux / MacOS
Windows

export LT_USERNAME=undefined \
export LT_ACCESS_KEY=undefined

set LT_USERNAME=undefined `
set LT_ACCESS_KEY=undefined

4. Write your automation script

An automation script for the sample application available above has been provided below. Ensure to update the APP_URL, username and accessKey in the code scripts before running the tests.

Info: Before running the script, please make sure that the file webDriver.py from Step 2, is in the same directory as this file.

main.py
from appium import webdriver
import os
import time
from appium.options.android import UiAutomator2Options


def getCaps():
    desired_caps = {
        "automationName": "Roku",
        "deviceName": "Roku Ultra",
        "platformVersion": "11",
        "platformName": "roku",
        "isRealMobile": True,
        "build": "Roku Testing",
        "app": "APP_URL",   # Enter app url here
        "network": False,
        "devicelog": True,
        "privateCloud": True,
        "visual": True,
        "idleTimeout": 1800,
    }
    return desired_caps


def runTest():
    if os.environ.get("LT_USERNAME") is None:
        # Enter LT username below if environment variables have not been added
        username = "<YOUR_LT_USERNAME>"
    else:
        username = os.environ.get("LT_USERNAME")

    if os.environ.get("LT_ACCESS_KEY") is None:
        # Enter LT accesskey below if environment variables have not been added
        accesskey = "<YOUR_LT_ACCESS_KEY>"
    else:
        accesskey = os.environ.get("LT_ACCESS_KEY")

    # grid url
    gridUrl = "mobile-hub.lambdatest.com/wd/hub"

    # capabilities
    desired_cap = getCaps()
    url = "https://" + username + ":" + accesskey + "@" + gridUrl

    print("Initiating remote driver:")
    driver = webdriver.Remote(
        options=UiAutomator2Options().load_capabilities(desired_cap),
        command_executor=url
    )

    # run test
    print(driver.session_id)

    # Simulate remote control actions
    driver.execute_script("roku: pressKey", {"key": "Down"})
    driver.execute_script("roku: pressKey", {"key": "Down"})
    time.sleep(1)
    driver.execute_script("roku: pressKey", {"key": "Right"})
    driver.execute_script("roku: pressKey", {"key": "Up"})
    driver.execute_script("roku: deviceInfo")
    time.sleep(1)
    driver.execute_script("roku: getApps")
    driver.execute_script("roku: pressKey", {"key": "Right"})

    driver.quit()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    runTest()

Configure the test capabilities

You can update your custom capabilities in test scripts. In this sample project, we are passing platform name, platform version, device name and app url (generated earlier) along with other capabilities like build name and test name via capabilities object. The capabilities object in the sample code are defined as:

Supported Capabilities: Please check at the end of the doc.

Platform: "roku"

main.py
    caps = {
       "automationName": "Roku",
       "deviceName": "Roku Express",     #We also support "Roku Ultra"
       "platformVersion": "11",
       "isRealMobile": True,
       "platformName": "roku",
       "build": "Roku Sample Test",
       "app": "APP_URL"          #Add app id here
       "visual": True,
       "devicelog": True
   }

Note

You must add the generated APP_URL to the "app" capability in the config file.
You can generate capabilities for your test requirements with the help of our inbuilt Capabilities Generator tool.For more details, please refer to our guide on Desired Capabilities in Appium.

5. Execute your test case

Install the required packages from the cloned project directory:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Run the following command in the directory where your project has been saved to execute your build.

python main.py

tip

If you are unable to run the automation script with the above mentioned commands try 'python3' command except for 'python'.

List of Capabilities supported by Roku:

KEY	VALUES	CAPABILITY DESCRIPTION
automationName	TYPE: STRING `roku`	Tells Appium to use the Roku Appium Driver.
*deviceName	TYPE: STRING `Roku Ultra`	Name of the device.
isRealDevice	TYPE: BOOLEAN DEFAULT: TRUE `video=TRUE` OR `video=FALSE`	It makes sure that the device being allocated is a Real device.
*platformName	TYPE: STRING `roku`	Name of the OS.
*platformVersion	TYPE: STRING `11`	OS version.
build	TYPE: STRING DEFAULT: Untitled `build=iOS Small Run`	You can group your tests like a job containing multiple tests.
*app	TYPE: STRING `app=lt://APP100201061631704657918380`	Accepts App URL returned after uploading an app on the LambdaTest servers.
visual	TYPE: BOOLEAN DEFAULT: FALSE `visual=TRUE` OR `visual=FALSE`	Command by command screenshots will be recorded at each test step. By default off.
video	TYPE: BOOLEAN DEFAULT: TRUE `video=TRUE` OR `video=FALSE`	Video recording of the complete screen.
devicelog	TYPE: BOOLEAN DEFAULT: FALSE `devicelog=TRUE` OR `devicelog=FALSE`	Enable Device logs.

Your test results would be displayed on the test console (or command-line interface if you are using terminal/cmd) and on the LambdaTest App Automation Dashboard.

Supported Commands

We utilise the Appium Roku Driver to run tests on Roku via Appium, here's a list of all the commands the driver supports from the project's README:

Command	Parameters	Description
`roku: pressKey`	`key`	Press the remote key whose value matches `key` (must be one of the supported key values from the Roku documentation). As addressed in the documentation, Roku TVs also support additional keys such as `PowerOff` and `PowerOn`.
`roku: deviceInfo`		Get information about the Roku device
`roku: getApps`		Get a list of apps installed on the device. The response will be a list of objects with the following keys: `id`, `type`, `subtype`, `version`, and `name`.
`roku: activeApp`		Get information about the active app, in the same format as `roku: getApps`.
`roku: activateApp`	`appId` (required), `contentId`, `mediaType`	Launch an app with the corresponding `appId`. Optionally include `contentId` and `mediaType` information (with the same properties as described above for the `activateApp` command)
`roku: selectElement`	`elementId` (required)	Moves the focus on an element having locator XPath as `elementId`. If it is unable to focus on the element, the driver will respond with an error.
`roku: playerState`		Get the state of the media player. The data will be returned as a JSON object, corresponding to the information included in the query/media-player ECP result
`roku: deepLink`	`contentId`, `mediaType`	As described in the Roku dev docs, you can deep link into content in the running application using a content ID and media type. For this command, `contentId` is required, and `mediaType` defaults to `movie` and must be one of the valid media types. Note that this command acts on the currently-running app. If you want to test deep-linking into an app that is not launched, use `activateApp` instead.
`roku: ecpInput`	`params`	This command allows calling the `/input` ECP command directly. An arbitrary set of key/value pairs can be sent in as a JSON object. No url-encoding of the values needs to be done. For example, to represent the parameters in the ECP command `POST /input?acceleration.x=0.0&acceleration.y=0.0&acceleration.z=9.8` from the ECP docs, you would construct a `params` of `{"acceleration.x": "0.0", "acceleration.y": "0.0", "acceleration.z": "9.8"}`

Roku TV With Appium

Tutorial To Run Your First Test On LambdaTest

Objective

Prerequisites

Supported Models

Run your first test

1. Upload your application

2. Clone the sample project

3. Set up your authentication

4. Write your automation script

Configure the test capabilities

5. Execute your test case

List of Capabilities supported by Roku:

Supported Commands

Additional Links

Test across 3000+ combinations of browsers, real devices & OS.

Help and Support

Do you find this helpful?

Still need help?

Related Articles

Tutorial To Run Your First Test On LambdaTest​

Objective​

Prerequisites​

Supported Models​

Run your first test​

1. Upload your application​

2. Clone the sample project​

3. Set up your authentication​

4. Write your automation script​

Configure the test capabilities​

5. Execute your test case​

List of Capabilities supported by Roku:​

Supported Commands​

Additional Links​

Test across 3000+ combinations of browsers, real devices & OS.

Help and Support

Do you find this helpful?

Still need help?

Related Articles

Tutorial To Run Your First Test On LambdaTest

Objective

Prerequisites

Supported Models

Run your first test

1. Upload your application

2. Clone the sample project

3. Set up your authentication

4. Write your automation script

Configure the test capabilities

5. Execute your test case

List of Capabilities supported by Roku:

Supported Commands

Additional Links