I am excited to announce that we’re now shipping WiFi debugging for Firefox OS! It’s available in Firefox OS 3.0 / master with Firefox Nightly on desktop.

WiFi debugging allows WebIDE to connect to your Firefox OS device via your local WiFi network instead of a USB cable.

The connection experience is generally more straightforward (especially after connecting to a device the first time) than with USB and also more convenient to use since you’re no longer tied down by a cable.

Security

A large portion of this project has gone towards making the debugging connection secure, so that you can use it safely on shared network, such as an office or coffee shop.

We use TLS for encryption and authentication. The computer and device both create self-signed certificates. When you connect, a QR code is scanned to verify that the certificates can be trusted. During the connection process, you can choose to remember this information and connect immediately in the future if desired.

How to Use

You’ll need to assemble the following bits and bobs:

On Firefox OS, enable WiFi debugging:

Go to Developer Settings on device (Settings -> Developer) Enable DevTools via Wi-Fi Edit the device name if desired

To connect from Firefox Desktop:

Open WebIDE in Firefox Nightly (Tools -> Web Developer -> WebIDE) Click “Select Runtime” to open the runtimes panel Your Firefox OS device should show up in the “WiFi Devices” section A connection prompt will appear on device, choose “Scan” or “Scan and Remember” Scan the QR code displayed in WebIDE

After scanning the QR code, the QR display should disappear and the “device” icon in WebIDE will turn blue for “connected”.

You can then access all of your remote apps and browser tabs just as you can today over USB.

Technical Aside

This process does not use ADB at all on the device, so if you find ADB inconvenient while debugging or would rather not install ADB at all, then WiFi debugging is the way to go.

By skipping ADB, we don’t have to worry about driver confusion, especially on Windows and Linux.

Supported Devices

This feature should be supported on any Firefox OS device. So far, I’ve tested it on the Flame and Nexus 4.

Known Issues

The QR code scanner can be a bit frustrating at the moment, as real devices appear to capture a very low resolution picture. Bug 1145772 aims to improve this soon. You should be able to scan with the Flame by trying a few different orientations. I would suggest using “Scan and Remember”, so that scanning is only needed for the first connection.

If you find other issues while testing, please file bugs or contact me on IRC.

Acknowledgments

This was quite a complex project, and many people provided advice and reviews while working on this feature, including (in semi-random order):

Brian Warner

Trevor Perrin

David Keeler

Honza Bambas

Patrick McManus

Jason Duell

Panos Astithas

Jan Keromnes

Alexandre Poirot

Paul Rouget

Paul Theriault

I am probably forgetting others as well, so I apologize if you were omitted.

What’s Next

I’d like to add this ability for Firefox for Android next. Thankfully, most of the work done here can be reused there.

If there are features you’d like to see added, file bugs or contact the team via various channels.