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Announcing watchOS Simulator Support in the XCUITest Driver

We’re excited to announce that the XCUITest driver now supports automation of watchOS apps — a platform that’s been on Appium’s requested list for a long time.

In order to automate watchOS, you'll need the following:

  • XCUITest driver version 12.6.0 or later (WebDriverAgent 16.5.0 or later)
  • Xcode 15.4 or later
  • watchOS 10 or later

Important to note: the driver currently only works with simulators — real devices are not compatible.

The good news: automating a watchOS app looks just like automating any other iOS/iPadOS app. The standard use-cases of finding and clicking on elements, retrieving the page source, using the Appium Inspector — all work as usual. The one exception here is standard W3C gesture/touch actions (tap/swipe via the Actions API), which are not supported.

On top of that, a few watchOS-specific extensions are available:

  • mobile: pressButton — press the Digital Crown or Action button
  • mobile: rotateDigitalCrown — rotate the Digital Crown (since driver version 12.7.0)
  • mobile: performHandGesture — perform double-tap or wrist flick hand gestures (since driver version 12.7.0)

For full setup instructions, capabilities, and limitations, check out the watchOS guide.

Happy testing!