OTT & Streaming

OTT & streaming app testing on Apple TV, Android TV and Roku

Test your TV apps from a browser tab: Apple TV simulators, Android TV emulators and physical Roku devices, next to the iPhone, iPad and Android phone builds of the same service. Check focus, remote keys, deep links, sign-in and playback screens in one self-serve tool. AI testing is in beta.

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The problem

Why streaming apps are hard to test

A streaming service ships the same catalog to several TV and phone platforms, and each TV platform has its own remote, its own focus engine and its own keyboard. Most QA teams cover that with a shelf of boxes, a drawer of remotes and a spreadsheet of who checked what.

Every TV platform needs its own hardware, and only the people near the shelf can test
Focus bugs (a tile you cannot reach, Back that lands somewhere odd) only show up with a remote in hand
Sign-in on a TV keyboard and parental PINs make every regression pass slow by hand
Phone tests do not transfer: a TV app is driven by focus, not taps

Apple TV · Android TV · Roku

Your keyboard is the remote.

Focus you can see and check Your keyboard’s arrow keys move focus, Enter selects and Escape goes Back. The UI Tree Inspector marks the focused element on Apple TV and Android TV, so you can see where focus landed.
Tests that survive layout changes When a row gains or loses a tile after you record, the test still lands on the tile you pressed, because each recorded press remembers the element that had focus.

TV testing Launch params Test data and secrets

The Devices page running a live Apple TV session with the TV Catalog app and the D-pad remote controls beside the screen

How VibeView helps.

Apple TV, Android TV and Roku in one list

Pick a device on the Devices page and the app streams to your browser. Apple TV runs as a simulator and Android TV as an emulator; Roku sessions stream a physical Roku device. Fire TV apps built on Fire OS run as Android TV apps.

Focus and D-pad, verified

Recordings remember the element that held focus at each press. Replay moves focus there and checks it arrived instead of re-sending key codes blindly, and the step says so when it can’t.

Typing on TV keyboards

Type from your own keyboard into a focused field, or into a Roku on-screen keyboard. On Apple TV, the AI (beta) can type on an app’s own on-screen keyboard grid, one key at a time.

Deep links and launch params

Open a deep link into your app on Apple TV and Android TV, or start the app with launch params. On Roku, launch params arrive as arguments to your channel’s Main function, the same place a deep link’s content ID and media type arrive.

Record once, replay on the other TV

A test recorded on Apple TV replays on Android TV and the other way round. When both apps use the same test IDs, steps are focus-verified on both; without them, replay falls back to D-pad keys and marks the step unverified.

Playback screens, with evidence

Every run keeps a video for 30 days, shown beside the run’s app log and each step’s result. Verify steps check what the player screen shows, and you can turn on the device’s sound to listen (Apple TV on tvOS 18 and later, Android TV and Roku).

Share a TV build with stakeholders

Send a share link and the recipient uses your TV app in their browser with an on-screen remote: no box to ship, no sideloading, no developer account on their side.

TV tests in CI

Run tagged Apple TV, Android TV and Roku groups from your pipeline with the same CLI as phone groups, or schedule them every night or on every new build.

Why VibeView

Why teams choose VibeView.

One product for every screenPhone and TV builds of the same service sit under one product, with shared test data, so the team stops juggling a tool per platform.
Self-serveSign up, upload a build and start a TV session. No sales call to get access and nothing to install.
Regressions caught by the run, not the shelfSmart runs replay recorded steps and use the AI (beta) only where the screen changed or a step has no path yet. Runs in No AI mode use no usage credit.
Clear about what it doesn’t testVibeView tests your app’s behavior and screens. It does not measure stream quality or validate DRM, so keep a hardware pass for those before release.

Test your streaming app on every TV platform

Upload a TV build and start a session. No credit card required.

Get Started

What to plan for

Sign-in on a TV keyboard

Typing an email and password with a remote is slow by hand and brittle in scripts. Save the account as test data and steps refer to it by name; mark the password secret and it is masked in results and never put in the AI’s prompts. For tests that should start signed in, set the start state to Restart the app.

Parental and purchase PINs

Store PINs as secret test data too. One caveat: a Verify step cannot check a secret, so check the screen the PIN leads to (“Verify the Kids profile is open”), not the digits themselves.

Backends that only accept some regions or IP ranges

Streaming services often geo-restrict their APIs. Devices reach the internet from VibeView’s network, not yours, so your backend may block them as devices it doesn’t recognize. If it only accepts known IP addresses or regions, email support@vibeview.io to check whether our devices can reach it before you plan a test pass, or point the build at a staging backend with launch params.

Focus held in JavaScript

Some React Native TV apps track focus only in their own JavaScript. Android TV then cannot report which element is focused, so replay falls back to the recorded key presses and marks those steps unverified. Apps that use react-native-tvos or Leanback focus get verified steps. The TV testing docs list the known limits.

Build and ship

The CLI that runs your TV tests also builds your apps and sends them to the stores: TestFlight for Apple TV, Google Play for Android TV and the Amazon Appstore for Fire TV, from any computer, with no Mac. Each of those stores takes one vibeview submit command. Roku has no submit command: channels are tested and shared here and published from Roku’s own dashboard.

Apple TV: tvOS builds and TestFlight, no Mac

A production cloud build makes a signed tvOS .ipa, with certificates and profiles generated through your App Store Connect API key. The submit uploads it to TestFlight and follows it until it reaches your testers: export compliance, What to Test notes, internal and external groups and Beta App Review. TestFlight details sets the beta test information Apple asks for before external testing, including the tvOS privacy policy text, without opening App Store Connect.

vibeview submit \
  --platform tvos \
  --latest \
  --group "QA team" \
  --wait-distribution

Android TV: Google Play tracks and staged rollout

Send an Android TV production build to Internal testing, Closed testing, Open testing or Production (Google Play tracks), with release notes in each language your listing has, up to 500 characters each. On every track except Internal testing you can start a staged rollout for 1 to 99% of users. Google doesn’t raise the percentage on its own (Play Console Help, checked 25 October 2026), and VibeView doesn’t change a release after the upload, so you raise, halt or complete it in Play Console.

vibeview submit \
  --platform androidtv \
  --latest \
  --track production \
  --release-status inProgress \
  --rollout 0.1 \
  --release-notes "Bug fixes"

Fire TV: the Amazon Appstore

A Fire TV app is an Android TV app in VibeView, so you build it for Android TV with a profile that makes a signed .apk (Amazon’s submission API, which VibeView uses, takes only an .apk, not an .aab). The first submission also needs your Amazon App ID (--amazon-app-id), which VibeView then saves. The submit uploads the build, writes your release notes to every language of your Amazon listing and sends the version for Amazon review. The Amazon Appstore reaches Fire TV and Fire tablets. The app’s first version and Live App Testing stay in the Amazon Developer Console.

vibeview submit \
  --platform androidtv \
  --store amazon \
  --latest \
  --amazon-app-id <id> \
  --release-notes "Bug fixes"

Roku: test and share here, publish from Roku

Upload your channel’s .zip and it runs on a physical Roku in VibeView’s cloud: test it, record and replay tests, and send a share link. Roku channels are zips of source files, so there is no build step. When you are ready to publish, use Roku’s Developer Dashboard, where Roku certifies the channel before it goes public (Roku’s publishing guide, checked 25 October 2026).

No submit command: publish from Roku’s Developer Dashboard.

What stays in each store’s console: App Store review and phased release, Google Play rollout changes, store listings, pricing and privacy labels. Done in the store’s console lists where each task lives. Full setup is in Store submission and Cloud builds.

Shipping guides

Terms: What to Test, export compliance, external testing group and the full glossary.

TV testing guides

Platform details: Apple TV, Android TV and Roku. For phone test automation, see AI QA automation.