Android – How to detect when an Android application is running in the emulator

androidandroid-emulator

I would like to have my code run slightly differently when running on the emulator than when running on a device. (For example, using 10.0.2.2 instead of a public URL to run against a development server automatically.) What is the best way to detect when an Android application is running in the emulator?

Best Answer

How about this solution (class implementation of SystemProperties is available here):

private var sIsProbablyRunningOnEmulator: Boolean? = null

fun isProbablyRunningOnEmulator(): Boolean {
    var result = sIsProbablyRunningOnEmulator
    if (result != null)
        return result
    // Android SDK emulator
    result = (Build.FINGERPRINT.startsWith("google/sdk_gphone_")
            && Build.FINGERPRINT.endsWith(":user/release-keys")
            && Build.MANUFACTURER == "Google" && Build.PRODUCT.startsWith("sdk_gphone_") && Build.BRAND == "google"
            && Build.MODEL.startsWith("sdk_gphone_"))
            //
            || Build.FINGERPRINT.startsWith("generic")
            || Build.FINGERPRINT.startsWith("unknown")
            || Build.MODEL.contains("google_sdk")
            || Build.MODEL.contains("Emulator")
            || Build.MODEL.contains("Android SDK built for x86")
            //bluestacks
            || "QC_Reference_Phone" == Build.BOARD && !"Xiaomi".equals(Build.MANUFACTURER, ignoreCase = true) //bluestacks
            || Build.MANUFACTURER.contains("Genymotion")
            || Build.HOST=="Build2" //MSI App Player
            || Build.BRAND.startsWith("generic") && Build.DEVICE.startsWith("generic")
            || Build.PRODUCT == "google_sdk"
            // another Android SDK emulator check
            || SystemProperties.getProp("ro.kernel.qemu") == "1"
    sIsProbablyRunningOnEmulator = result
    return result
}

Note that some emulators fake exact specs of real devices, so it might be impossible to detect it. I've added what I could, but I don't think there is a 100% way to detect if it's really an emulator or not.

Here a tiny snippet you can make in the APK to show various things about it, so you could add your own rules:

        textView.text = "FINGERPRINT:${Build.FINGERPRINT}\n" +
                "MODEL:${Build.MODEL}\n" +
                "MANUFACTURER:${Build.MANUFACTURER}\n" +
                "BRAND:${Build.BRAND}\n" +
                "DEVICE:${Build.DEVICE}\n" +
                "BOARD:${Build.BOARD}\n" +
                "HOST:${Build.HOST}\n" +
                "PRODUCT:${Build.PRODUCT}\n"
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