USB Hubs for iOS real device farms

Support
1

Hello everybody! Thanks for taking the time to read!

Ive bought and returned 7 powered USB hubs on Amazon now. I finally found one that supports my 5 iphone 8’s but within 36 hours the USB gets disconnected by the mac due to excessive power draw. Note: This has a 120W power adapter. Iphone 8’s run to 12W but mine are fully charged doing nothing and have brightness at zero.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089DK7R74?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Im really hoping someone has some insights or ideas to help resolve the problem because everything works fine when its plugged in again. I am looking to increase my testing capacity but I just cant seem to figure this out. Maybe the answer is a different hub…What are you using on your 5-10 phone farms? Or maybe its a usb switch or some sort to schedule an unplug of some sort?

Thank you all so much in advance!

2

Check for example 16 Port USB 3.2 Gen 1 Rack Mount Hub w/Surge Protection and DIN Rail

In general, only look for industrial solutions - they have better reliability characteristics and wider acceptable temperature ranges

Also consider a proper cooling solution in the lab as this equipment produces lots of heat.

3

Just bought one. Will report back. Thanks. I think it might be worthwhile for there to be guide somewhere on here about this topic. Im sure it would save Amazon probably $50k in returns lmfao

4

I use InLine® USB 3.2 Gen.1 7 Port Hub Aluminium Case with 2.5A Power Supply black |Hubs | Input / Output | Products | inline-info.com with iPhone11 and Nokias Android phones.
Now use 4 hubs with 25 phones.

5

Thank you so much for your awesome recommendation! It worked great for me!

However all 5 of my iphone 8s tend to unplug themselves for some reason i cannot see after 30 minutes to 1 hour rendering them unconnectable. The only solution for remote access is to restart the machine. Do you have any ideas on how to solve this? Im on M1 macbook air with the hub you suggested with 5 iphone 8’s.

6

There might be multiple reasons to that.

Start with checking the device and host logs for the time they was disconnected.
Also, verify if it also happens without them being connected through the hub.

I’m also not sure what “unconnectable” means. Are they listed in the list of connected USB devices connected to the host (e.g. system_profiler SPUSBDataType output) or they are just not visible to the iproxy?

Eventually if you confirm this behavior has to do with the hub you may also try to contact vendor’s customer support. These devices from the higher price league usually have pretty good support as well.

7

Try change power settings on macbook. Sleep never and so on.

8

Ill respond in order:

They only disconnect when they are connected to the hub on the mac. They are still charging just fine.

They seem to be invisible to xcode/iproxy.

[WD Proxy] Matched ‘/status’ to command name ‘getStatus’
[WD Proxy] Proxying [GET /status] to [GET http://127.0.0.1:8100/status] with no body
[iProxy@7047b2b2:8100] Connection was refused to port 8100
[WD Proxy] socket hang up

[XCUITestDriver@32cb (bbf6a7da)] WDA is not listening at ‘http://127.0.0.1:8100/’. Original error:: An unknown server-side error occurred while processing the command. Original error: Could not proxy command to the remote server. Original error: socket hang up

The M1 Macbook air is on never sleep mode. Its not sleeping. Perhaps something to do with too much wattage so it blocks the iphones?

I think it may have something to do with this but im not sure?
[XCUITestDriver@32cb (bbf6a7da)] Matched ‘/status’ to command name ‘getStatus’
[XCUITestDriver@32cb (bbf6a7da)] Proxying [GET /status] to [GET http://127.0.0.1:8100/status] with no body
[iProxy@7047b2b2:8100] Connection was refused to port 8100
[XCUITestDriver@32cb (bbf6a7da)] socket hang up

Or this instance:
[XCUITestDriver@6acd (c7c44d5e)] Matched ‘/status’ to command name ‘getStatus’
[XCUITestDriver@6acd (c7c44d5e)] Proxying [GET /status] to [GET http://127.0.0.1:8100/status] with no body
[iProxy@5eb84cbb:8100] Connection was refused to port 8100
[XCUITestDriver@6acd (c7c44d5e)] socket hang up