Remote Viewer enables you to view the device's current screen on your Console and take screenshots. Remote Control allows you to take control of the device. This means you may interact with the remote device using your mouse or trackpad as if you were physically touching the screen.
Remote Viewer and Control are useful in a variety of situations including:
- Capturing a bug report for a device out in the field
- Observing unexpected behavior
- Checking on devices that send alerts
In this article:
- Set Up Remote Viewer
- Capturing a Screenshot on a Device
- Set up Remote Control
- Hardware Keys and Keyboard Events
To use remote control functionality on devices, contact the Esper team for a Supervisor plugin.
Note: Only a single device-to-Esper Console session is allowed at a time.
If you have the ‘Viewer’ role, you can remotely view the device. However, you won’t be able to control the device.
Set Up Remote Viewer
To set up Remote Viewer follow the steps:
Step 1: To remotely view a device, click on Start Session.
On devices using Android 9.0 and above, the Esper Console will establish a secure connection with the device, and the device's screen will be streamed to the Console.
There will be a prompt requesting for remote view. Once the remote view request is allowed, a secure connection will be established, and the device's screen will be streamed to the Console.
The session will end automatically after a set number of minutes displayed in the console.
To end the session earlier, click Stop Session.
The Full screen button allows you to remotely view the device in full-screen mode.
While in Full screen mode using Remote Control, a widget will enable navigation on a remote device that has hard keys. If the control widget happens to overlap with the frame, grab and drag it to a more convenient area.
To exit the Full screen view, press the Escape key on your keyboard.
For Esper Agent versions below 7.5.0005, Remote Viewing will work, but Remote Control won't work through the accessibility service. However, the Remote Control and Remote Viewer will continue to work with Supervisor and Knox. See Esper Agent Version release notes for more information.
Capturing a Screenshot on a Device
Capturing screenshots can be useful in reporting unexpected behavior on devices. To take a screen shot, start a remove viewer session.
Step 1: Click the Take Screenshot button to capture the current device screen.
At the bottom of the session window are all screenshots captured from the device.
Click on the screenshot to open it. Right click to download the screenshot.
Set up Remote Control
On Esper Foundation for Android Devices or devices that have a manufacturer signed Esper Agent in the system, there is an option to Remote Control the device.
Unlock the device before starting the Remote Controller session.
Since Esper has obtained membership in SEAP (Samsung Enterprise Alliance Program), our platform now supports Samsung Knox-specific extensions. We provide the Remote Control feature available for any Esper provisioned Samsung devices running Knox 3.x or newer. If the remote control option is not supported for your device, we display a message in the Remote view.
If you see the error message, perform the following:
- Got to the Esper Settings on your device.
- Click the ‘Remote Control’ option.
- Now enable Remote Viewer.
On the pop-up, you will be asked to confirm your choice. Click OK.
You can use the remote control in both view modes: Full-screen and non-full-screen.
Hardware Keys and Keyboard Events
Some devices do not have soft keys for home, back, and recent and they use physical keys on the device instead. On such devices, a virtual set of keys appear at the middle of the Remote Control screen. When in Full-screen mode, the widget includes the hard keys. You can grab and move the widget to a different location on your screen as you wish.
Additionally, we have enabled keyboard events so users can use the keyboard on their system to type, and are not forced to use the keyboard on the device.