What are the main limitations of physical labs for connected product testing?

Physical labs have four key limitations: device constraints (limited number and variety of devices), edge case limitations (difficulty simulating extreme conditions), accessibility barriers (complex setup for non-hardware specialists), and slow iteration cycles due to manual processes.

How can virtual testing extend physical lab capabilities?

Virtual testing extends physical labs by enabling testing at scale with thousands of simulated devices, creating complex workflows and failure scenarios impossible with physical devices, and providing faster iteration cycles with automated testing processes.

What industries benefit from hybrid physical-virtual testing approaches?

Medical devices (infusion pumps), industrial automation (edge devices and PLCs), and building automation (fire & safety systems) all benefit from hybrid testing that combines physical validation with virtual scalability.

How does virtual testing help with medical device validation?

Virtual testing allows medical device manufacturers to simulate thousands of connected devices like infusion pumps, validate middleware handling complex workflows, test interoperability at scale, and simulate stress conditions impossible in physical labs while meeting regulatory requirements.

What role does site-to-site VPN play in hybrid testing environments?

Site-to-site VPN enables single-tenant cloud testing environments to connect with physical PLCs operating on local IP networks, allowing seamless integration between cloud-based virtual devices and physical lab equipment for accurate validation.

How does hybrid testing improve building automation validation?

Hybrid testing extends physical fire & safety lab setups with virtual devices in the cloud, enabling comprehensive validation across entire buildings or campuses without requiring prohibitively large physical setups while maintaining real-world network topologies.

Extending Physical Labs with Virtual Testing for Scalable and Comprehensive Validation

Doppelio Physical Lab to Virtual Testing Lab for IoT Testing-

Connected product teams and engineering teams often invest heavily in physical labs to test software against real devices. These setups provide high-fidelity environments to validate the interaction between software and hardware. However, physical labs come with inherent limitations:

Device constraints – There’s a practical limit to the number and variety of devices that can be included in a physical setup. Large-scale testing, especially when involving hundreds or thousands of devices, is often infeasible.
Edge case limitations – Creating and testing outlier scenarios, boundary conditions, and failure cases is difficult with real devices. Physical environments lack the flexibility to easily simulate extreme conditions.
Accessibility barriers – Physical device setups are often not intuitive for software developers or QA testers who aren’t deeply familiar with hardware. Setting up, configuring, and troubleshooting real devices can be time-consuming and intimidating for non-hardware specialists.
Slow iteration cycles – Validating software with physical devices tends to be slow due to manual setup, limited availability of test infrastructure, and longer feedback loops. Alo, lack of automation many a times.

Many organizations that have invested in physical labs are now extending their testing capabilities with virtualization. By extending physical labs with virtual testing or virtual labs, they can test at scale, simulate complex workflows, do more scenarios & cycles faster and uncover issues that might only emerge under large-scale deployments.

Real-World Examples of Extending Physical Labs with Virtual Testing (Virtualization)

Medical Devices: Testing Infusion Pumps at Scale

A medical device manufacturer, , faced challenges as their infusion pumps became connected. While the physical lab was essential for on-device software validation, it was impractical for testing large-scale deployments, interoperability, and stress conditions.

To address this, they created a virtual lab that could simulate thousands of infusion pumps, allowing them to:

Validate middleware handling complex workflows.
Test interoperability at scale.
Simulate stress conditions and failure scenarios that would be impossible in a physical lab.

This hybrid approach enabled them to meet both regulatory requirements and modern connectivity challenges.

Industrial Automation: Scaling Testing for Edge and PLC Interactions

As industrial automation systems become more complex, traditional testing setups—such as Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) systems and homegrown simulators—struggle to scale.

A forward-thinking approach involves simulating Edge devices as virtual instances in the cloud, which connect to both:

Physical PLCs in a lab, ensuring real-world compatibility.
Other cloud or on-prem services, enabling scalable functional and performance testing.

Such a setup supports various data flows:

Cloud → Virtual Edge Box → Real PLC
Cloud → Edge Box → Virtual PLC
Cloud → Edge Device Management/License Server → Edge Box
End-to-end system validation

A key challenge in this environment is that real PLCs often operate on local IP networks, making direct cloud connectivity difficult. A single-tenant cloud testing environment site-to-site VPN to the lab, enables seamless integration, ensuring accurate and scalable validation.

By adopting this approach, industrial automation teams can:

Validate configurations across diverse scenarios.
Accelerate testing cycles.
Reduce the risk of deployment failures.

Building Automation: Extending Fire & Safety Testing Beyond Physical Labs

Another scenario involves fire and safety systems, where a physical lab setup might include a few dozen devices. However, in real deployments, these systems span entire buildings or even large campuses, making physical replication infeasible.

To test at scale, teams can create a hybrid virtual-physical setup, where:

Virtual devices extend the physical lab setup into the cloud.
The system mirrors real-world conditions, including network topologies.
On-prem components interact with virtualized devices (running on-premise/cloud) to replicate large-scale environments.

This approach allows for comprehensive validation across extensive infrastructures without requiring prohibitively large physical setups.

The Power of Combining Physical and Virtual Labs

These examples illustrate the growing need for hybrid testing environments that blend physical and virtual labs. By extending existing physical setups with virtualization, teams can:

Test at scale – Simulate thousands of devices to validate large-scale deployments.
Increase coverage – Test complex workflows, failure conditions, and edge cases that are impractical with physical devices.
Improve efficiency – Automate testing, reduce costs, and accelerate time-to-market.

Virtual labs can be deployed quickly, offering a cost-effective way to enhance testing capabilities. For connected product teams aiming for rapid growth and high-quality validation, this hybrid approach is not just viable—it’s essential.

Gaurav Johri, Co-Founder & CEO