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AstroFarm
Your test devices, everyone’s access — a private farm of real Android and iOS hardware, reserved from a browser, with builds and data that never leave your custody.
How it’s rated
Full scoreboard ↓Quick answer
AstroFarm is 42Gears' private device farm: it turns the Android and iOS devices your company already owns into a remotely-accessible test lab — developers and QA engineers reserve real devices from a browser, run manual and automated tests, capture logs and screenshots, and release the device for the next engineer. Unlike public clouds (BrowserStack, Sauce Labs), the devices are YOURS: your exact models, your SIMs, your peripherals, inside your network — with none of the per-minute metering or data-residency anxiety.
The 42Gears product family
This page covers AstroFarm — the device farm. The rest of the 42Gears lineup:
Quick facts
30-second orientation- Product
- AstroFarm — the private device farm from 42Gears
- Vendor
- 42Gears Mobility Systems (Bengaluru-born, 2009 · founder-run)
- Category
- Private device farm / remote device lab for dev & QA
- Devices
- Android and iOS — the hardware you already own
- Access
- Browser-based remote control — reserve, test, release
- Testing
- Manual interactive + automation hooks (ADB, frameworks)
- Evidence
- Logs, screenshots and screen recordings per session
- Deployment
- Your premises or cloud — devices stay in YOUR custody
- Economics
- No per-minute metering — own the farm, use it flat-out
- In India via
- TechBag — quotes, trials, GST invoicing, Tier-1 support
Understand device farms before you buy it
Most product pages skip this. We start here — so you buy a capability, not a buzzword.
What is a private device farm?
A device farm is a pool of real phones and tablets shared through software: reserve from a browser, control remotely, run tests, release for the next engineer.
Private means the devices are yours — your exact models, your SIMs, your network, your custody. AstroFarm is the productised version of what ambitious QA teams used to duct-tape together with OpenSTF.
The device drawer vs the private farm — the honest table
What consolidation actually replaces, dimension by dimension.
| Dimension | Drawer + couriers + metered cloud | Private farm (AstroFarm) |
|---|---|---|
| Device access | A drawer at HQ; couriers for everyone else | Browser-based, reserved from anywhere |
| Who has what | A Slack thread and hurt feelings | Reservations with auto-release |
| Real SIM/OTP tests | Impossible on public clouds | Your SIMs, your carrier, your farm |
| Nightly automation | A per-minute bill that caps testing | Flat-out CI on owned hardware |
| Pre-release builds | Uploaded to someone else's cloud | Never leave your custody |
| Device matrix | The cloud's catalogue, not your users' phones | Your exact models, racked |
| Session hygiene | The last tester's data everywhere | Reset between sessions |
| Cost shape | Metered forever | Fixed licence on hardware you own |
Adoption is incremental — rack the high-demand models first; the drawer empties as the queue proves itself.
The five pieces of the platform
Vendors love diagrams; buyers need to know what they’re actually operating. Here’s the whole platform, demystified.
Device Rack
The phones and tablets you already own, cabled into hubs at your office or lab — AstroFarm turns the drawer of test devices into infrastructure.
Farm Server
On-prem or cloud-hosted, it brokers reservations, streams device screens to browsers, and keeps the queue honest.
Reservation Layer
Engineers reserve devices, sessions time-bound, conflicts resolved by queue — the 'who took the Pixel' Slack thread dies here.
Test Interface
Full interactive control in the browser — tap, type, rotate, install builds — plus ADB and automation hooks for CI pipelines.
Evidence Layer
Logs, screenshots and recordings captured per session — the bug report writes itself with reproduction attached.
One agent on every machine, one console over all of them — modules attach without a second operational world.
Twelve capabilities. Access, test, govern.
AstroFarm replaces the device drawer, the courier bills and the metered cloud with infrastructure made of hardware you already own.
Browser-Based Device Control
Real devices streamed to any browser — tap, swipe, type and rotate from anywhere, with the device physically racked in your lab.
Reservation & Queueing
Engineers book devices by model and OS version; sessions expire and release automatically — the shared-drawer chaos becomes a calendar.
Your Exact Device Matrix
The budget Android your users actually own, the old iPhone your app must still support — a farm of YOUR reality, not a cloud's catalogue.
Build Install & Distribution
Push APKs and test builds to reserved devices in seconds — the install-over-USB shuffle ends.
Manual Interactive Testing
Exploratory testing on real hardware from anywhere — the remote QA engineer gets the same device access as the one at HQ.
Automation & CI Hooks
ADB access and framework integration let CI pipelines target farm devices — nightly suites run on real hardware, unmetered.
Real SIMs, Real Sensors
OTP flows, carrier quirks, GPS and camera behaviour — the tests public clouds can't run because their devices have no YOUR-network SIM.
Logs, Screens & Recordings
Every session captures logcat, screenshots and video — bug reports arrive with reproduction evidence attached.
Data Stays In Your Custody
Pre-release builds and test data never leave your network — the compliance conversation public clouds start, ended.
Farm Utilisation Analytics
Which devices, which teams, how busy — the data that right-sizes the next hardware purchase.
Device Reset Between Sessions
Sessions end with cleanup — the next engineer inherits a device, not the last engineer's test data.
iOS Support
iPhones and iPads in the same farm since AstroFarm's iOS release — the two-platform matrix under one reservation system.
Watch AstroFarm in action
Official demos — the pitch, the setup and the iOS expansion.
AstroFarm: A Private Device Farm Solution by 42Gears
The pitch in minutes — your devices, everyone's access.
Set Up Your Private Mobile Device Farm with AstroFarm
From device drawer to working farm — the setup walkthrough.
AstroFarm: Announcing Support for iOS Devices
iPhones join the farm — the two-platform matrix completed.
Want a live, India-context walkthrough on your own fleet?
Book a guided demo →Every cloud rents you devices. One product organises yours.
Here’s what genuinely sets AstroFarm apart from the alternatives.
Your devices, everyone's access
The test-device drawer becomes shared infrastructure: racked once, reserved from anywhere, released automatically. Remote engineers stop being second-class testers.
The tests clouds can't run
Real SIMs on your carrier, your exact budget-Android models, your peripherals and your network — OTP flows and carrier quirks tested honestly, not approximated.
No meter running
Public clouds bill per minute, and nightly automation suites eat budgets. A private farm runs flat-out at a fixed cost — CI on real hardware stops being a luxury.
Pre-release builds stay home
Unreleased apps and test data never leave your custody — the security review that stalls public-cloud adoption simply has nothing to object to.
The phone-shipping era ends
No more couriering devices between offices or hoarding under desks — the farm's reservation queue replaces the logistics and the arguments.
A device veteran's farm
Racking, powering, resetting and controlling fleets of Android and iOS hardware is exactly what 42Gears has done since 2009 — the farm is that muscle, repackaged for dev teams.
The numbers behind the platform
What your AstroFarm journey looks like
Device & workflow census
TechBag advisors count your test devices, map team locations and CI needs, and size the farm — often the hardware already exists in drawers.
Pilot rack live
A starter rack with your highest-demand models, reservation flows configured, remote engineers onboarded.
CI wired in
Automation pipelines target farm devices; nightly suites move off the metered cloud; evidence capture standardised.
Farm steady state
Utilisation data right-sizes hardware buys, the courier era ends, and testing capacity stops being a budget line. TechBag handles renewals.
Trusted across frontline industries in 170+ countries
The review scoreboard
Modelled on Gartner Peer Insights structure. *Counts and breakdowns are illustrative pending verified review collection.
Quick poll — what’s driving your evaluation?
Talk to an advisor“Forty test devices from three offices became one farm. The 'who has the Pixel 6' Slack channel is archived.”
“OTP and payment flows test on real SIMs on our actual carrier — the class of bug our public-cloud suite could never catch.”
“Nightly regression runs on twelve real devices, every night, no meter. Our BrowserStack bill used to decide how much we tested.”
“Security signed off in one meeting because builds never leave our network. The public-cloud review had been stuck for a quarter.”
“Remote QA engineers in two cities get the same device access as HQ. Hiring stopped being limited by device logistics.”
“Session cleanup means nobody inherits my logged-in test accounts. Small feature, daily value.”
“The device matrix is OUR matrix — the ₹8,000 Android our users actually buy, which no cloud catalogue stocks.”
“Setup took a weekend with the racks and hubs. Budget real time for cabling — after that it just runs.”
Where everyone sits — the grids
Analyst firms bury this view behind paywalls, and G2 retired its Grid. So here’s TechBag’s synthesis of the device farms market — tap any vendor to see why it sits where it does.
TechBag Device-Testing Grid
Execution strength vs product vision — the classic market map, minus the paywall.
The productised private farm — custody, real SIMs and flat costs, with racking as the honest price of entry. This page's subject.
Capability × Custody/Economics
The grid nobody publishes — testing capability vs who holds your data and bills your minutes.
Private-farm capability with productised setup — the practical middle of custody and convenience.
Positions are TechBag’s illustrative synthesis of public review-platform data and vendor documentation — not a reproduction of any analyst graphic. Verify before relying on it.
AstroFarm vs the testing field
Deliberately cross-shaped: public clouds, the AWS path and DIY — with honest lanes for each, including hybrid.
| Dimension | AstroFarm | BrowserStack | Sauce Labs | AWS Device Farm | DIY (STF/OpenSTF) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | Private farm — your devices | Public cloud | Public cloud | Public cloud | Private DIY |
| Device matrix | YOUR exact models | 3,000+ devices | Broad | Decent | Whatever you rack |
| Real SIM / carrier / peripheral tests | Native | No | No | No | Yes |
| Data custody | Stays home | Their cloud | Their cloud | AWS's cloud | Stays home |
| Automation & CI | ADB + framework hooks | Deep | Deep | Good | You build it |
| Cost at heavy usage | Flat | Meter runs | Meter runs | Meter runs | Flat + your time |
| Setup & maintenance | A weekend + vendor support | None | None | None | Your engineers, forever |
| Best fit | Teams with devices & data rules | Broad-matrix spot checks | Enterprise cloud suites | AWS-native shops | Tinkerer teams |
Which testing approach is right for you?
Honest fit signals — because the fastest way to lose your trust is to pretend one product wins every scenario.
Choose AstroFarm if…
- ✓Real-SIM/OTP/carrier flows must be tested honestly
- ✓Pre-release builds can't leave your custody (BFSI, healthcare)
- ✓Nightly automation on real devices is capped by cloud metering
- ✓You already own the device matrix your users actually buy
Choose BrowserStack if…
- ✓You need occasional access to thousands of models
- ✓Zero setup appetite; metering is acceptable
Choose Sauce Labs if…
- ✓Enterprise QA suite consolidation is the goal
Choose AWS Device Farm if…
- ✓Your CI already lives in AWS
Choose DIY/STF if…
- ✓Engineering time is cheaper than licences for you
- ✓You enjoy maintaining lab infrastructure
What does device chaos cost your team?
Drag the sliders (count your test devices). Estimates assume ~3 engineer-hours per test device per year lost to hunting, couriering, staging and access queues, with ~70% removed by reservations, remote access and session hygiene — cloud-metering savings come on top. Illustrative and conservative.
Loaded cost = salary + overheads per productive hour. Illustrative only — your TechBag quote models actual device counts and modules.
Three ways to consume it
AstroFarm prices by farm size, not by the minute. TechBag models it against your cloud bills in one GST-compliant quote.
Starter farm
Best for first racks
- Your highest-demand device models
- Reservation queues + remote control
- On-prem or cloud farm server
CI-integrated farm
Best for automation-heavy teams
- ADB + framework hooks into pipelines
- Nightly suites without metering
- Evidence capture standardised
Hybrid setup
Best for broad-matrix needs
- Private farm for daily + custody work
- Small public-cloud plan for exotic models
- TechBag models both bills together
Buy it for less — TechBag pricing beats list
Whatever the list prices above, TechBag negotiates a significantly better deal — with GST-compliant INR invoicing and local support. Ask us for your discounted quote.
Get an India-ready quote
Tell us your device counts and current tools — we’ll model it against what you spend today.
The 8 questions to ask every device-farm vendor
Take this into your next vendor call — including ours.
Where do builds, logs and recordings physically live? For BFSI/healthcare, get the data-flow diagram.
Rack YOUR devices in the trial — the budget Android, the old iPhone — not a demo unit.
Run a real OTP flow on a farm device with your carrier's SIM. This is the test clouds can't sell you.
Wire one real pipeline to farm devices during the trial and run a nightly suite. Time and cost it.
Have your most remote engineer reserve, test and release a device. Latency and control fidelity decide daily happiness.
End a session with test data everywhere; verify the next session inherits a clean device.
Cables, hubs, power, cooling — budget the physical setup properly. It's a weekend, not an hour.
Keep a small public-cloud plan for exotic-model spot checks? Many teams run hybrid — model both bills.
Questions buyers ask
Ready to evaluate AstroFarm?
Get a quote, scope a starter-rack trial with your real devices, or bring your cloud-testing bill and let a TechBag advisor run the crossover math.
Stats, ratings, review counts and pricing are illustrative and sourced from public materials; verify before purchase.