Android Tools : scrcpy : Vysor Pro like features, for free!
As an Android Developer you might have come across the need to mirror your Android Device to your computer, reasons could be many:
- Demo purposes.
- Better/Bigger size screen.
- Easier to type in stuff on a full sized keyboard.
Whatever the reason though, if you have tried mirroring your device to the system, you must’ve heard about Vysor.
Vysor puts a fully controllable window of your Android on your desktop. It’s easy install Chrome app, compatible with all operating systems.
The free version has many limitations though, the screen resolution quality is very poor and all of the animations are lost when you are mirroring the phone screen to the system and it has ads.
If you want a high resolution mirror and no ads, you need to buy the pro version.
Or you can just use scrcpy.
Genymotion, the developer behind GenyMobile open sourced scrcpy (Screen Copy) this march.
Scrcpy is a great tool for controlling your Android device from your computer and its completely free!
Other benefits include:
- It does not require any root access.
- It works on GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac OS.
- No app installation required on device.
- High resolution mirror of your phone.
- You can take complete control you device, simply drag drop apps to install them, type using your computer keyboard and much more.
It focuses on:
- lightness (native, displays only the device screen)
- performances (30~60fps)
- quality (1920×1080 or above)
- low latency (70~100ms)
- low startup time (~1 second to display the first image)
- non-intrusiveness (nothing is left installed on the device)
You can even use the tool when adb is connected over Wi-Fi!
To get your test device up and running using Wi-Fi read my previous article:
Mirroring the device over Wi-Fi will be naturally slower than compared to a USB cable but having the option doesn’t hurt.
How does it work?
The application executes a server on the device. The client and the server communicate via a socket over an adb tunnel.
The server streams an H.264 video of the device screen. The client decodes the video frames and displays them.
How do I get started?
Getting started is super easy, just head over to the documentation on scrcpy’s Github page.
For making the best use out of the tool, I seriously recommend reading the developers blog marked in the reference section at the end of the article.
All sunshine then?
Not quite.
The guys over at 9To5Google have mentioned in their article that scrcpy faces some issues on Windows.
References:
