React Native development environment setup using expo and virtual devices

prerequisites

1. Android Studio: To be able to run android emulator devices, it needs to install Android Studio.

2. Set environment varibales to be able to using adb and emulator commands:

   • Add the following line in the end of ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc file (more details):

     export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk 
     export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/emulator 
     export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools 
     export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools 
     export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin

Android

First of all create some Android devices by taking the following steps:

1. open Android Studio
2. go to tools>Device Manager
3. press Create device button.
4. follow the steps to create an Android device. As an example, I created the following devices:
   • Nexus_9_API_29
   • Pixel_2_API_32

How to run devices:

Run all available Android emulators, install expo apk on them and then connect them to the given expo-server-addr, e.g.: exp://localhost:19000:

cd Android
chmod +x *.sh
./run_available_emulators.sh && \
./install_expo_on_all_connected_devices.sh && \
./connect_all_devices_to_expo_server.sh <expo-server-addr>

How to shutdown devices:

To shutdown all the emulators using a single command:

cd Android
chmod +x *.sh
./shutdown_all_devices.sh

Todo:

• Add iOS support