Let’s say a barcode scanner in your warehouse suddenly stops syncing. It’s running Android, it’s in kiosk mode, and… it’s 1,000 miles from your office. No physical access. No developer nearby.
So, what do you do?
This happened to me a few months ago while testing a warehouse inventory solution. Our team hit a weird bug where the scanner app would crash silently after sleeping for too long. The only way to reproduce it? Wait three hours in standby. Not ideal.
We tried a few things:
Building a crash log uploader into the app
Setting up a watchdog to restart the app
Using Firebase Crashlytics (limited detail in kiosk scenarios)
Asking the field team to take screenshots (didn’t go well)
Eventually, we realized what we needed wasn’t a new feature, it was remote visibility.
What Remote Tools Have You Tried?
Some teams I’ve spoken with use:
ADB over Wi-Fi (if the device is on the same network… rarely the case)
Custom scripts that upload logs to S3 every X minutes
SSH-like remote shells with zero UI (minimal, but powerful)
Remote access via an MDM platform with kiosk exit & screenshot capabilities
One MDM I was exploring (Scalefusion, I think) had a “view-only” mode for debugging remote Android devices, which seemed like a middle ground between full control and total lockdown.
What’s Your Setup?
If you're managing Android devices in the field—especially those without easy GUI access—how do you:
Reproduce bugs?
View logs in real time?
Restart apps or services remotely?
Handle broken apps stuck in kiosk mode?
I'm curious what other devs, SREs, or IT folks are doing here. Maybe there's a better way we haven't tried yet.
Let’s trade notes in the comments.
Top comments (0)