How To Connect to Your Android Device Through ADB Wirelessly

So you’d like to connect your phone to ADB (Android Debug Bridge) but your just so sick of USB cables and their ilk? Well, a neat little app in the Market can solve that problem for you by allowing you to connect wirelessly to your Android device through ADB using your Wifi signal. Not only that but you can also use it to connect to your application editor (i.e. Eclipse) and use it to test your app on it. Here’s how.

I. Before You Begin

1. You must have Windows and must have a rooted Android device. If you need to root your device, head to our How To’s section for how to do that.

2. You must have installed the SDK according to this procedure.

II. Download the App and Set It Up

1. Firstly, head to the Android Market on your phone and search for ADBWireless, then download and install it.

2. Then connect to Wifi on your phone (it must be the same Wifi network that your computer is connected to).

3. Now, open the ADBWireless app on your phone and push the big red button (allow Superuser permissions when it asks).

4. The app should display “adb connect xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx” similar to the picture above. Remember this line.

III. Connect to the Device from the Computer

1. On your computer open a command prompt by clicking on the Start menu and then typing in cmd and hitting enter in the search box.

2. Once the command prompt opens type in the following with hitting enter at the end of each line:

cd c:\androidsdk\tools
adb connect xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx     (replace the x’s with the corresponding numbers that are displayed in the app itself).
adb devices

3. After typing the last line, you should see a serial number display indicating that it recognizes your device in ADB. If you see that serial number, you are all set!

IV. (Optional) Use This Newfound Ability to Wirelessly Test Your Apps on the Device.

1. The original procedure and how to connect to the device in Eclipse now is available here. Feel free to comment on his page and thank him if the procedure helped you! Enjoy!

Thanks JesseChen for sending this in!

5 thoughts on “How To Connect to Your Android Device Through ADB Wirelessly”

  1. I’ll post this here as well in case others need it:

    When I connect through USB it all works. “adb devices” even says so. I can share with ESexplorer over wifi with no problem. Also, I have updated the SDK and ADB is in the new directory “platform-tools”. That took a minute to figure that out. But, after that, still nothing.

    1. I would think more people would visit this site between now and when I posted this, or, at least someone would find themselves in a similar situation, or, someone from the site itself could chime in.
      Hello?

  2. hi, just trying to suss out this. i have used the adb before, but now trying to set up this process, as i try to cd in to Androidsdk reply “Cannot find path specified” appears. Any idea?

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