Emulator Watcher

PyQt-based desktop app that connects to remote servers over SSH, discovers running Android emulators via adb, and continuously streams their screenshots into a multi-panel viewer.

Screenshot

Demo screenshot showing multiple emulator feeds streamed into the viewer.

Features

• Reads available hosts directly from your ~/.ssh/config file for quick selection.
• Establishes an SSH session using Paramiko and runs all adb commands remotely.
• Lists connected emulators (adb devices) and lets you start/stop watchers per instance.
• Streams frames by executing adb -s <serial> exec-out screencap -p in worker threads and renders them in the GUI with timestamps.
• Supports multiple concurrent emulators; each feed is labeled by its emulator serial and port.
• Provides a manual "Remote adb path" input so you can point to a non-standard adb binary on the server.

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or newer on the local machine.
• The remote server must have Android SDK platform tools (adb) installed and available on PATH.
• Your ~/.ssh/config must contain the target host definitions (non-wildcard entries) and the associated SSH keys must be accessible (agent or local files).
• Local machine needs an X server (macOS + Qt is fine) and access to PyQt6.

Quick Start

1. Install dependencies:

   uv sync
   source .venv/bin/activate

2. Launch the GUI:

   uv run emulator-watcher

3. Enter the absolute path to adb on the remote server, then select a host and click Connect.
4. Click Refresh Emulators to list running emulators.
5. Highlight one or more emulators and click Start Watching to begin streaming their screens.

Project Structure

src/emulator_watcher/
├── app.py              # PyQt application + main window
├── adb_service.py      # SSH-backed adb helpers and screenshot workers
├── ssh_config.py       # Parser for ~/.ssh/config entries
├── ssh_client.py       # Paramiko session wrapper
├── models.py           # Shared dataclasses
└── widgets/
    └── emulator_panel.py