Test biometric authentication on BrowserStack mobile devices

The majority of mobile devices today support Biometric hardware sensors to authenticate device owner’s identity. BrowserStack enables you to test Biometric Authentication such as Touch ID/Fingerprint Sensor, Face ID, etc on a BrowserStack mobile device.

In this guide, you will learn about :

1. How to test Biometric authentication in an App Automate session
2. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How to test Biometric authentication in an App Automate session

To test Biometric Authentication feature in your mobile apps, follow the below outlined steps :

1.1 Enable Biometric Authentication in the Appium Session

Use BrowserStack’s Appium capability to enable Biometric in a BrowserStack Appium session.

This ensures your app undergoes Sensor Instrumentation which is a process using which BrowserStack supports app’s interaction with different mobile sensors such as Biometric.

DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
HashMap<String, Object> browserstackOptions = new HashMap<String, Object>();
browserstackOptions.put("enableBiometric", "true");

var capabilities = {
  	'bstack:options' : {
  		"enableBiometric" : "true",
  	},
}

desired_cap = {
  	'bstack:options' : {
  		"enableBiometric" : "true",
  	},
}

capabilities = {
    'bstack:options' => {
        "enableBiometric" => "true",
    },
}

AppiumOptions capabilities = new AppiumOptions();
Dictionary<string, object> browserstackOptions = new Dictionary<string, object>();
browserstackOptions.Add("enableBiometric", "true");

DesiredCapabilities desiredCapabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
desiredCapabilities.setCapability("browserstack.enableBiometric", "true");

var capabilities = {
    "browserstack.enableBiometric" : "true"
}

desired_cap = {
	"browserstack.enableBiometric" : "true"
}

desired_caps = {
    "browserstack.enableBiometric" => "true"
}

DesiredCapabilities capability = new DesiredCapabilities();
desiredCapabilities.SetCapability("browserstack.enableBiometric", "true");

1.2 Use BrowserStack’s custom executor to interact with Biometric authentication dialog

When your app, which is BrowserStack sensor instrumented, presents Biometric Authentication alert use our custom executor with action biometric & arguments {"biometricMatch": "pass"} to interact with the alert as shown below :

driver.executeScript("browserstack_executor: {\"action\":\"biometric\", \"arguments\": {
    \"biometricMatch\" : \"pass\"
}}”)

await driver.execute("browserstack_executor: {\"action\":\"biometric\", \"arguments\": {
  \"biometricMatch\" : \"pass\"
}}”)

driver.execute_script("browserstack_executor: {\"action\":\"biometric\", \"arguments\": {
    \"biometricMatch\" : \"pass\"
}}”)

@driver.execute_script("browserstack_executor: {\"action\":\"biometric\", \"arguments\": {
    \"biometricMatch\" : \"pass\"
}}”)

driver.executeScript("browserstack_executor: {\"action\":\"biometric\", \"arguments\": {
    \"biometricMatch\" : \"pass\"
}}”)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How does Biometric Authentication work on BrowserStack mobile devices?

BrowserStack supports an app’s interaction with different mobile sensors such as Biometric using Sensor Instrumentation. Sensor Instrumentation is the process in which, if Biometric is enabled for the session, we inject BrowserStack’s Biometric code module into the app which mocks or overrides Biometric APIs used by the app.

2. What Biometric APIs are supported by BrowserStack Biometric feature?

Please note that Biometric feature will work only if the app uses any of the following supported Biometric APIs. To get more details about the Biometric APIs your app uses please check with your app development team.

On Android, currently we support the following Biometric APIs in Android SDK :

• BiometricPrompt API. For more details, please check BiometricPrompt Google documentation.
• BiometricManager API. For more details, please check BiometricManager Google documentation.
• KeyguardManager API. For more details, please check KeyguardManager Google documentation.
• FingerprintManager API. For more details, please check FingerprintManager Google documentation.

On iOS, currently we support the following Biometric APIs in iOS SDK :

• canEvaluatePolicy & evaluatePolicy APIs from the LAContext class in the Apple’s iOS Biometric SDK. For more details, please check LAContext Apple documentation.

3. Do we need to register Biometric on the mobile device or make any changes in the app code?

NO. You do not need to register any Biometric on the mobile device or make any changes in the app code.

4. What kind of apps are supported?

We support native apps & apps built with cross platform frameworks such as React Native, Flutter, etc.

Related topics

Check this page for a list of various JavaScript Executors that BrowserStack offers.

Need some help?

If you have any queries, please get in touch with us.