Sauce Labs Launches the Industry’s First Programmable Device Cloud for the AI Era
Sauce Labs today announced general availability of the Real Device Access API, which provides developers with a scalable mobile testing infrastructure that provides device-level controls without the required test framework.
With AI capabilities built into the device and OS level, the tools developers rely on to test mobile apps have failed to keep up with the new ways in which apps use hardware resources.
When talking to customers, Sauce Labs learned that developers want direct access to devices to be tested, and they want to be able to run tests on the device with standard frameworks like APM and Espresso, Sauce Labs Chief Product Officer Shubha Govil told SD Times. “But what if developers couldn’t get device-level information, and often those frameworks don’t allow them to access some of those capabilities — especially when they’re trying to understand the details around, for example, is my app driving more memory? Is it driving more storage? Is it heating up the device,” Govil said. “It’s some device-level logs that are more important for them to understand the impact of their application, more than just a standard workflow test.”
Security is another case that customers want, said Govil. “It’s important for certain root detection, such as malicious root detection, malware scanning, the type of data on the device,” he noted, and customers want more information about the device, performance and data specifically. “This is where we know we have to make sure that order is available over our mobile infrastructure,” said Govil.
He says Govil has learned from his years of experience in the industry, with Twilio and Cisco before that, that once you expose a capability through an API, you not only enable the use cases that customers want, but you give them options to take things further. “That’s what we’ve done by systematically exposing this data set, this capability. Now engineers can choose other scenarios that we might not have heard of until now,” he explained. “This is where next-generation innovation comes in. Users can rely on our API to pull data and see what they want to drive.”
All of this gives developers the ability to run mobile testing more directly through the API, using the CI/CD tools they’ve been programming in their APM and the Espresso version of apps that support those frameworks, Govil said.
According to the announcement of the company, developers can know everythingocate devices in seconds, issue Android Debug Bridge (ADB) commands for Android devices or xcrun-style commands for iOS devices, stream live video and logs, manage files, and save sessions for up to 24 hours—all over HTTP requests. The persistent session model eliminates the typical test setup and teardown cycle, with early adopters reclaiming up to 40% of device usage time. And with high-fidelity video streaming optimized for Computer Vision and MCP-Ready architecture, the API also serves as a perfect bridge for AI-driven exploration, allowing autonomous agents to interact with devices like native tools.
“The future of mobile quality isn’t just another testing framework — it gives developers the programmable layer they need to build for the AI era,” Govil said in the announcement. “Every mobile device is now a smart device with AI built into the hardware and OS. The test infrastructure has to reflect that fact, and that’s exactly what we’ve built.”
The Real Device Access API is now available as an add-on for Sauce Labs Real Device Cloud private devices. For documentation and access, visit https://saucelabs.com/resources/blog/breaking-free-announcing-the-sauce-labs-real-device-access-api
