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Internet of Things Testing: Benefits, Best Practices, & Tools for Reliable Connected Systems

Nov 4, 2025
6 min read
author volha

Volha Shchayuk

Author

Volha Shchayuk

Volha is a seasoned IT researcher and copywriter, passionate about AI, QA, and testing. She turns technicalities into engaging articles, helping you discover and easily grasp the latest IT concepts and trends.

IT researcher

Reviewed by Boris Seleznev

boris author

Reviewed by

Boris Seleznev

Boris Seleznev is a seasoned performance engineer with over 10 years of experience in the field. Throughout his career, he has successfully delivered more than 200 load testing projects, both as an engineer and in managerial roles. Currently, Boris serves as the Professional Services Director at PFLB, where he leads a team of 150 skilled performance engineers.

IoT is an ecosystem of devices connected through networks and relying on cloud or app services for endless communication, data exchange, and smart automation. For this ecosystem to work seamlessly 24/7, it heavily depends on IoT testing. Apart from impeccable performance, the latter guarantees the reliability, protection, and integrity of diverse devices, networks, apps, and data, delivering top-quality IoT products for businesses and ensuring safety and comfort for users.

This tutorial touches upon the concept of IoT testing with the fundamental layers it’s applied for; outlines the types and benefits of this kind of validation; and highlights the key best practices and tools for the efficient process.

What Is IoT Software Testing?

what is iot testing

IoT testing is part of the broader QA strategy that validates the functionality, performance, and security of the entire IoT environment, including devices with edge components, network protocols, cloud and back-end services, and user dashboards. 

Validating IoT systems differs from traditional web or API testing. It focuses not only on software functionality but also on hardware, firmware with over-the-air (OTA) updates, constrained networks, and power sources. In addition, IoT device testing involves verifying that communication protocols — such as MQTT, CoAP, HTTP/REST, BLE, Zigbee, Wi-Fi, and cellular — are implemented and used correctly across chains of numerous IoT devices.

The primary objectives of end-to-end IoT validation are ensuring correctness, scalability, and efficient power usage for all interconnected systems. Besides, an effective IoT quality assurance process must align with ISO/IEC 27001, NISTIR 8259, NIST SP 800-213, and the ETSI EN 303 645 consumer IoT security standard to guarantee that the ecosystem, along with all the data flowing through it, is resilient and protected against potential breaches.

IoT Architecture Layers to Validate

IoT systems span numerous architecture layers, with each having its own set of testing requirements. In the table below, we cover validation areas in each design tier, common issues that may arise, and which signals to monitor to identify these problems:

LayerWhat to TestTypical IssuesObservability Signals
Device/Firmware (sensors/actuators, drivers, RTOS)Sensor accuracy, actuator response, firmware stability, OTA update realityMalfunctioning sensors, driver bugs, failed updates, memory leaksDevice logs, sensor data trends, crash dumps, update success/failure rates
Edge Gateway (protocol translation, buffering, local rules)Data forwarding, protocol compatibility, buffering under load, local decision rulesData loss, inconsistent translations, buffer overflows, rule misfiresGateway logs, queue metrics, dropped packet counts, rule execution stats
Connectivity (broker/ingress, QoS, retires, roaming)Network stability, throughput, latency, QoS handling, handoffs/roamingPacket loss, jitter, high latency, unstable roaming, retry stormsNetwork logs, latency metrics, QoS delivery rates, retry/failure counters
Cloud/Application (ingestion, storage, analytics, APIs, dashboards)Data ingestion reliability, storage consistency, analytics accuracy, API stability, dashboard usabilityData duplication/loss, API errors, inconsistent analytics, UI glitchesAPI logs, storage metrics, analytics output checks, UI monitoring tools

Ensure that your tests cover every component of IoT architectural tiers so that the entire system operates as planned.

Benefits of IoT Testing

The perks of IoT tests are explicit for both the engineering life cycle and businesses. Here’s what you’ll gain by incorporating IoT testing into all steps of your SDLC:

  • Safety and reliability: Rigorously scrutinized IoT apps run safely and consistently, resulting in fewer system failures and predictable behavior in the long run.
  • Strengthened security posture: IoT security testing greatly reduces cybersecurity risks through measures like password policies, updateability, data encryption, and access controls. Critical IoT device cybersecurity baseline examples include OWASP IoT Top 10 and ETSI EN 303 645.
  • Outstanding performance: Comprehensively testing Internet of Things devices ensures that all elements perform efficiently even under harsh conditions, with quick response times, high data throughput, and optimal resource allocation.
  • Reduced costs: IoT testing cuts operational expenses by creating right-sized infrastructure with prudent battery and network usage, optimized traffic, and easily managed peak loads.
  • Better compliance and easier market access: Validated IoT solutions conform to NISTIR 8259 and NIST SP 800-213 regulatory requirements, satisfying procurement rules and simplifying market entry.

Types of IoT Tests

To make sure every single aspect of your interconnected ecosystem performs well, it’s recommended that the following IoT test types be conducted:

  • Functional & Integration 
  • What to validate: Message flows, topic structures, payload schema, command/response timing, and OTA update pre/post checks.
  • Key metrics: Message accuracy, schema validation rate, and update success rate.
  • IoT Performance Testing
  • What to validate: Load/throughput (broker/API), latency percentiles, spike/burst handling, endurance/soak with drift detection (memory, handles), and edge buffering under back-pressure. Remember to consider cloud and device capacity limits.
  • Key metrics: Throughput, latency, memory usage, error rates, and system stability.
  • Interoperability & Protocol
  • What to validate: MQTT/CoAP QoS behavior, retained messages, will messages, content formats, and BLE/Zigbee pairing and re-join flows.
  • Key metrics: Message delivery rate, QoS reliability, reconnection rate, and protocol compliance.
  • Connectivity & Network Resilience
  • What to validate: Packet loss, jitter, delay, roaming, broker reconnect, QoS downgrades, and offline/online sync behavior. Simulate adverse networks in a lab to assess recovery and stability.
  • Key metrics: Packet loss rate, reconnection time, QoS levels, latency, and data consistency after recovery.
  • OTA Firmware Testing
  • What to validate: Pre-checks, rollback, integrity/signature verification, and partial-power scenarios.
  • Key metrics: Update completion rate, rollback success, signature validation, and recovery time.
  • Power/Battery & Thermal
  • What to validate: Sleep/wake cycles, radio duty cycle, and thermal throttling.
  • Key metrics: Battery life, power consumption rate, and temperature stability.
  • Data Quality & Telemetry
  • What to validate: Deduplication, ordering, timestamp drift, and schema evolution.
  • Key metrics: Data accuracy, timestamp precision, duplication rate, and schema compliance.
  • Usability Testing for Companion Apps & Portals
  • What to validate: Provisioning, pairing UX, notifications, and accessibility basics.
  • Key metrics: Pairing success rate, notification accuracy, UX error rate, and accessibility compliance.
  • IoT Data Security Testing
  • What to validate: Device identity, unique credentials, transport security, updateability, and data protection at rest/in transit — all aligned with OWASP IoT Top 10 categories.
  • Key metrics: Authentication success rate, encryption coverage, vulnerability count, and patch/update verification.
  • Compliance/Regulatory
  • What to validate: Conformance to ETSI EN 303 645 and organizational baselines, such as NISTIR 8259 and SP 800-213.
  • Key metrics: Compliance checklist completion and audit pass rate.
  • Observability & Diagnostics
  • What to validate: Logs/metrics/traces at device, gateway, broker, and cloud layers, along with fleet-level visibility for triage.
  • Key metrics: Log completeness, metric precision, trace correlation accuracy, and alert coverage.

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Best Practices for IoT Test Automation

If you’re aiming for a glitchless IoT app testing process, incorporate the proven best practices outlined below:

Shift-Left & CI

  • Run payload/schema checks and protocol simulators in CI on every code change.
  • Schedule nightly/weekly automated long runs.
  • Implement pass/fail gates for critical latency/error metrics like p95/p99 message latency, failed command execution, and more.

Environment Parity & Data Realism

  • Use realistic device identities, topics, certificates, and synchronized time.
  • Ensure representative payload sizes, message rates, and retention settings.

Network Emulation & Resilience

  1. 1.
    Add loss, jitter, and latency profiles for Wi-Fi and cellular networks.
  2. 2.
    Validate reconnects, QoS downgrades, offline buffering, and message reply behavior.

Security Framework Adherence

  • Enforce unique credentials, firmware settings, secure boot, and mTLS where applicable.
  • Align with OWASP IoT Top 10, ETSI EN 303 645, and NISTIR 8259 security guidelines. 

Data Quality & Telemetry Hygiene

  • Verify schemas, idempotency, timestamp accuracy, and deduplication.
  • Track metrics like throughout, p95/p99 latency, and error and drop rates.

Test Isolation & Fleet Hygiene

  • Make use of per-test namespaces/topics, disposable device IDs, and clean teardown.
  • Prevent cross-talk between concurrent test runs.

OTA Governance

  • Implement staged rollout rings, rollback policies, signature verification, and delta update acceptance criteria.
  • Maintain logs and audits for all update activities.

Device Diversity Coverage

  • Establish the minimum matrix across chipsets, RTOS versions, radios, and power profiles.
  • Include boundary cases, such as low battery and thermal limits. 

Long-Run Endurance & Capacity

  • Conduct IoT endurance testing for extended durations: 8-24 hours or more.
  • Monitor drift thresholds for memory, handles, and queues.
  • Stick to windowed SLAs for stability metrics in the final phase of the test.

Observability & Diagnostics

  • Collect unified logs, metrics, and traces at device, gateway, broker, and cloud layers.
  • Use correlation IDs and centralized retention for easier debugging.

Top IoT Testing Tools: 2025 Edition 

Regardless of whether you initiate IoT network testing or IoT device performance testing, specialized tools will help you smooth out and expedite the whole process. We’ve compiled the following platform-specific options of high-performing IoT testing equipment:

PFLB Platform

https://pflb.us/docs/en/releases/

https://pflb.us/docs/en/releases/

The PFLB cloud-based testing solution simulates massive IoT traffic, accurately gauges performance parameters like latency, and efficiently runs IoT scalability tests for the most complex environments. 

Features: 

  1. 1.
    Visual no-code script builder
  2. 2.
    Large-scale geo-distributed load simulation
  3. 3.
    AI-driven performance insights
  4. 4.
    Collaborative team management
  5. 5.
    Seamless CI/CD integration
  6. 6.
    Historical performance trends
  7. 7.
    Cloud-based JMeter execution
  8. 8.
    Live Grafana dashboards
  9. 9.
    Import of production traffic patterns

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • User-friendly interface with flexible test configuration
  • Tailored customer support
  • Strong data analytics and visualization
  • Reliable performance and load IoT testing
  • Testing efficiency
  • Time-saving

Cons:

  • Steep learning curve for some of the tools
  • Pricing can be high, especially for startups and small businesses

Katalon Studio

https://katalon.com/resources-center/blog/katalon-studio-4-6-0-release-announcement

https://katalon.com/resources-center/blog/katalon-studio-4-6-0-release-announcement

This low-code automation tool can be adeptly employed for functional and regression testing of IoT app dashboards and user interfaces across web, desktop, mobile, and API layers.

Features:

  • AI-powered assistant
  • Low- and full-code testing modes
  • Integration with DevOps and CI/CD
  • Vibrant learning community
  • Cross-environment compatibility
  • Cloud support

Pros: 

  • Easy to implement
  • User-friendly interface 
  • Active community 
  • Accessible customer support

Cons:

  • High licensing costs
  • Slow performance, especially with large test suites
  • Potential update issues
  • Unclear error messages
  • Slow loading times

Postman

https://community.postman.com/t/15-days-of-postman-for-tester-day-07-wrong-json-format-in-the-response-body-of-https-postman-echo-com-post/47066

https://community.postman.com/t/15-days-of-postman-for-tester-day-07-wrong-json-format-in-the-response-body-of-https-postman-echo-com-post/47066

Postman streamlines IoT API testing by validating MQTT messages and RESTful API interactions, establishing reliable communication between IoT systems. You can also try this gRPC testing tool for API performance or REST Assured.

Features:

  • Automated API request creation and testing
  • Validation of RESTful interactions and responses
  • CI/CD integration
  • Reporting and analytics
  • Cross-environmental testing
  • Integration with IoT security testing tools for APIs like Pynt

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Strong community support
  • Excellent user interface
  • Testing efficiency
  • Versatile API capabilities
  • Comprehensive features

Cons:

  • Sluggish performance when it comes to heavy tasks
  • Slow loading times
  • High resource consumption and limitations
  • Overpriced for smarter features

IoTIFY

https://blog.iotify.io/lan-simulation-using-the-iotify-mailbox-api-143c0ae6c315

https://blog.iotify.io/lan-simulation-using-the-iotify-mailbox-api-143c0ae6c315

Selecting IoTIFY is rational if you’re looking to simulate device behavior, communication protocols, and network connections, as well as conduct cloud-based IoT testing under heavy loads. The Bevywise IoT Simulator can be used as a complementary option for local or protocol-specific simulation. 

Features:

  • Support for multiple protocols, including MQTT, CoAP, HTTP, and WebSocket
  • Real-time device telemetry generation and monitoring
  • Scenario-based simulation for complex workflows
  • Integration with CI/CD and cloud services
  • Advanced security
  • AI/ML capabilities

Pros:

  • Quick to deploy and easy to use
  • Cost-effective for large-scale, cloud-based testing
  • Suitable for complex IoT environments

Cons:

  • Limited offline or local testing capabilities
  • Advanced customization may require additional setup

Wireshark

https://blog.wireshark.org/2015/11/let-me-tell-you-about-wireshark-2-0/

https://blog.wireshark.org/2015/11/let-me-tell-you-about-wireshark-2-0/

QA teams can use Wireshark to capture and analyze network packets from IoT apps; verify protocols; troubleshoot connectivity issues; and detect packet loss between devices, gateways, and cloud services.

Features:

  • Real-time network packet capture and analysis
  • Support for MQTT, CoAP, HTTP, and TCP/IP
  • Filtering and search capabilities
  • Live data inspection
  • Advanced analytics and visualization
  • Multi-platform support

Pros:

  • Open-source and easy to use
  • Insightful and detailed analysis of network traffic
  • Real-time monitoring of IoT network activity
  • Reliable diagnostics and troubleshooting with in-depth reports

Cons:

  • Outdated user interface, leading to potential issues
  • Steep learning curve, especially with large datasets and protocols
  • Slow performance caused by large capture files or high-speed networks
  • Data handling limitations because of multiple filters and options

JMeter

https://www.redline13.com/blog/2021/04/running-a-jmeter-load-test/

https://www.redline13.com/blog/2021/04/running-a-jmeter-load-test/

Tailored for performance testing, JMeter supports MQTT, HTTP, and WebSocket protocols and triggers efficient load, latency, and throughput evaluation across IoT environments. Locust and Gatling can be applied as more code-driven alternatives.

Features:

  • Comprehensive test IDE with rich functionality
  • Integration with CI/CD tools
  • Cross-platform compatibility
  • Highly extensible with plugins for data analytics, visualization, and scriptable sampler

Pros:

  • Intuitive interface
  • Open-source and easy to use
  • Large-scale IoT load simulations
  • Active community support

Cons:

  • Difficult to scale, particularly for distributed tests
  • High resource consumption in complex simulation scenarios
  • Limited real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities
  • Basic performance reports

AWS IoT Core Device Advisor

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/iot/latest/developerguide/da-console-guide.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/iot/latest/developerguide/da-console-guide.html

Turn to AWS IoT Core Device Advisor if you’re planning to validate firmware updates, OTA deployments, and cloud integrations, all while ensuring security and compliance across IoT systems. Mender can be utilized as an alternative for OTA updates in your IoT ecosystem.

Features:

  • Pre-built test suites
  • Security protocol support
  • Automated logs and detailed reports
  • Integration with AWS IoT Core and Device Management

Pros:

  • Cloud-based with seamless AWS integration
  • Scalable for testing multiple devices simultaneously
  • Time and cost efficiency in device certification
  • Compliance with IoT best practices

Cons:

  • Steep learning curve
  • Limited customization for complex scenarios
  • Vendor-specific

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How to Choose the Right Stack 

Deciding on the appropriate tech stack for smart device testing can be daunting, but it’s halfway to success. Here are the key criteria to consider:

  • Protocols & payloads: Make sure that the chosen tools support MQTT with QoS/retained and CoAP confirmable messages.
  • Scale & geography: Your toolkit must easily scale to accommodate an increasing number of devices, regions where they operate, and unexpected traffic bursts.
  • Security baselines: The selected IoT stack has to cater to your specific security requirements, including certificates, mTLS, and firmware signing.
  • Observability targets: Ensure your instruments let you collect and analyze relevant metrics like device telemetry, error rates, and more.
  • Team skills & CI/CD integration: Handpick the tools your team is familiar with and which integrate into your existing CI/CD pipelines.
  • Cost & operations: Consider whether the IoT instruments are offered as self-hosted or managed services, their operational complexity, and maintenance efforts.
  • Compliance: Confirm that your preferred tech stack meets regulatory standards like ETSI and NIST.

Why Does a Reliable IoT Testing Partner Matter?

A lack of seamless IoT interoperability, system crashes, cyberthreats, long release cycles, and non-compliance are just a few of the consequences of insufficient IoT testing. If you need top-quality IoT validation services, consider a reliable partner who can effectively handle infrastructure, scalability, security, and performance testing strategy for interconnected devices. 

With 15+ years of experience, PFLB adeptly handles cross-domain IoT projects of varying sizes and complexities, delivering measurable business outcomes, such as faster response times and near-zero system downtime. Check out our case study portfolio to see how we’ve assisted our global clients — and learn how we can help you.

Final Thoughts

Based on the latest report by Statista, the importance of connected device testing isn’t declining anytime soon, with the projected growth of IoT devices from 19.8 billion in 2025 to over 40.6 billion by 2034. As the number of IoT apps increases, so will the demand for high-quality testing services focused on end-to-end security, compliance, and system reliability. Access a pool of PFLB’s offerings and create an inherently healthy and thriving IoT ecosystem for many years to come.

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