Debugging Android wirelessly

Recently I flashed my Motorola Xoom with Android 3.2 in order to start playing with USB Host API and Open Accessory API, but both functionalities are implemented on the unique USB port that the Xoom has. This is not a problem when you own a Dock, or you own a Acer A500 which has one USB host and one USB device. Debugging an Android application using abd can be done wirelessly over WiFi using the followings instructions.

When debugging applications that use USB accessory or host features, you most likely will have USB hardware connected to your Android-powered device. This will prevent you from having an adb connection to the Android-powered device via USB. You can still access adb over a network connection. To enable adb over a network connection:

  1. Connect the Android-powered device via USB to your computer.
  2. From your SDK platform-tools/ directory, enter adb tcpip 5555 at the command prompt.
  3. Enter adb connect <device-ip-address>:5555 You should now be connected to the Android-powered device and can issue the usual adb commands like adb logcat.
  4. To set your device to listen on USB, enter adb usb.