Effective Bluetooth & Wi-Fi Interoperability: Comparing Manual & Automated Methods

Bluetooth and Wi-Fi interoperability testing is essential to ensure the success of any product launch. As more and more devices become connected and with a vast array of devices operating on different platforms, having a defined interoperability testing strategy that reflects the importance of this business-critical activity is vital in ensuring that your product works seamlessly with others.

However, there are two main methods of interoperability testing, manual and automated processes, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.

The Different Benefits of Manual and Automated testing

Manual Testing

Manual testing has several key advantages. It allows for quick exploration of unexpected results and behaviours. QA engineers can dive straight in, swiftly making progress on understanding the issue and contemplating potential solutions. Manual testing offers better recognition of user experience (UX) issues. Humans are well-equipped to spot UX testing questions. For human engineers, manual testing is quick to deploy using built-in user interfaces and manual testing methods make it easier to replicate field issues and is good at handling dynamic behaviour.

Automated Testing

Automated testing, on the other hand, offers several major benefits over manual testing methods. Automated testing offers lower costs per test, and resource requirements are not linear in the same way as manual testing. Secondly, it offers significant HR savings, as test engineers are expensive - automated testing maximises the value of test engineers leaving them free to focus on the issues.

What are the Advantages of Manual Testing?

Manual testing has clear advantages under certain well-defined circumstances. Manual testing is usually quick to roll out, making manual testing ideally suited for situations where the QA testing team is trying to establish whether a software update has resolved previously identified issues, and is the most logical route for testing early product prototypes.

Manual interoperability testing may often offer the best and fastest approach as a precursor to beginning automated testing, by first establishing the key parameters and functions required for testing prior to creating automated test cases.

When is Automated Testing More Advantageous?

Automated testing is the best choice in several scenarios. For example, regression testing is one area where automation takes precedence over manual testing, allowing a rapid run through and validation of product functionality.

Testing over-the-air firmware updates using automated regression testing is a reliable way to eliminate issues that would otherwise have the potential to threaten brand reputation.  Another case is in accelerating time to market where automation is becoming essential for continuous integration and development (CI/CD) teams and QA processes. Furthermore, automated testing allows a rigorous and consolidated approach to testing within QA teams in different locations and ensures consistent test methodologies across different offices and regions.

Automated testing provides confidence in the consistency and depth of your testing and can deliver 24/7 testing cycles. Finally automated testing processes can complete more extensive test scenarios replicating real world conditions, and guarantees detailed analysis, logging and bug tracing, with the ability to capture and precisely reproduce bugs for elimination.

Can Manual & Automated Testing be Combined?

Hybrid testing, combining manual and automated testing methods, is becoming increasingly common because it offers a ‘best-of-both-worlds’ approach. Some test scenarios simply cannot be 100% automated, so human input remains essential.

Hybrid testing is also particularly effective if certain steps are hard to automate. In this instance, automation does all the tests it can, then a test engineer runs any manual tests needed at the end of the test process. For many organisations this flexible approach combines the advantages of each into the most cost effective and efficient methodology for interoperability testing.

Artificial Intelligence and Automated testing

Automated testing offers significant advantages to enterprises able to harness its potential. Integrating automated testing is a key step to creating or strengthening competitive advantage in challenging markets. With artificial intelligence (AI) continuing to make automation easier and more effective, investments in automated testing are long-term decisions that look set to reap significant dividends.

As the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow and develop, it will have an increasing impact on automated product testing. AI-powered automation tools could enable more sophisticated testing scenarios, allowing for the creation of more complex test cases and the analysis of large data sets in real-time. Additionally, machine learning algorithms could be used to identify patterns in test results and predict potential issues before they occur. As AI technology becomes more advanced, we can expect to see a greater integration of AI-powered testing solutions into the product development process, leading to more efficient and effective testing and ultimately, better products for consumers.

Next Steps in Automated testing

Nextgen ATAM Connect is a codeless automated testing platform that features an intuitive UI which does not require any specific coding knowledge, making it a great option for QA teams to maximise resources and allow non-programmers to build sophisticated automated test plans.

Our innovative testing platform provides greater accuracy and a shorter development cycle, allowing the QA team to transition from manual to automated testing easily and increase the depth of testing while bringing robust products to market faster.

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