IoT Without Hardware:
The Odoo 19 "Mock" IoT Driver Framework

The $3,000 Barcode Scanner Sitting on Every Developer's Desk (Or Not)

If you've ever implemented Odoo's Barcode or IoT modules for a warehouse client, you know the pain: you can't test what you can't plug in. Barcode scanners, electronic scales, label printers, cash drawers—these aren't the kind of peripherals that sit on a developer's home office desk.

The result? Developers write IoT integration code blind, push it to staging, and pray it works when the warehouse team plugs in real hardware. Spoiler: it usually doesn't. Not on the first try. Sometimes not on the fifth.

Odoo 19 changes this entirely. The new Mock IoT Driver Framework lets you simulate barcode scanners, scales, printers, and other peripherals directly on your Linux or macOS development machine—no hardware required. This post is a step-by-step guide to setting up a virtualized warehouse testing environment, written for the QA engineers and implementation partners who've been fighting this battle for years.

How Odoo 19 Decoupled IoT Drivers From Physical Hardware

In Odoo 18 and earlier, the IoT Box was a hard dependency. The hw_* driver modules (e.g., hw_escpos, hw_scale, hw_scanner) communicated directly with USB/serial devices through the IoT Box's Raspberry Pi. If you didn't have the physical chain—device → USB → IoT Box → network → Odoo—you couldn't test anything.

Odoo 19 introduces a driver abstraction layer that sits between the IoT module and the hardware interface. Each driver now implements a standardized IoTDriver base class with two concrete backends:

The key architectural insight: mock drivers emit identical event payloads to real drivers. Your warehouse workflows, barcode processing logic, and scale reading handlers don't need separate test code paths—they receive the same data structures regardless of whether the input came from a physical scanner or a JSON fixture.

Setting Up a Virtualized Warehouse Testing Environment on Linux/macOS

Here's the setup we use at Octura Solutions for every warehouse implementation project. This gets your entire team—developers, QA, and even project managers—able to run full picking/packing/shipping flows without touching a single piece of hardware.

Step 1: Enable Mock IoT Mode

Start your Odoo 19 instance with the mock flag. This tells the IoT module to load mock backends instead of scanning for real USB devices.

# Start Odoo with mock IoT drivers enabled
./odoo-bin --addons-path=addons,enterprise \
           --iot-mock \
           -d my_warehouse_db

# Or set it permanently via system parameter:
# Settings → Technical → Parameters → System Parameters
# Key:   iot.driver.mode
# Value: mock

Step 2: Configure Mock Device Fixtures

Mock drivers read from JSON fixture files that define simulated device behavior. Create a mock_devices/ directory in your custom addons path.

{
  "device_type": "scanner",
  "device_name": "Mock Barcode Scanner",
  "connection": "usb",
  "responses": {
    "scan": [
      {"barcode": "5901234123457", "delay_ms": 200},
      {"barcode": "LOT-2026-03-A1", "delay_ms": 150},
      {"barcode": "WH/OUT/00042",  "delay_ms": 300}
    ],
    "mode": "sequential"
  }
}

{
  "device_type": "scale",
  "device_name": "Mock Warehouse Scale",
  "connection": "serial",
  "responses": {
    "read_weight": {
      "value": 2.450,
      "unit": "kg",
      "stable": true
    },
    "tare": {"value": 0.0, "unit": "kg", "stable": true}
  }
}

Step 3: Register Mock Devices in Odoo

Once mock mode is active, the IoT module auto-discovers your fixture files. Verify in IoT → Devices—you should see your mock scanner and scale listed with a [MOCK] badge.

# In a custom module's post_init_hook or test setUp:
from odoo.addons.iot.mock import MockDeviceRegistry

registry = MockDeviceRegistry(env)
registry.register_fixture('mock_devices/barcode_scanner.json')
registry.register_fixture('mock_devices/scale.json')

# Trigger a simulated scan event:
scanner = registry.get_device('Mock Barcode Scanner')
scanner.trigger('scan')  # Emits first barcode in sequence

Step 4: Write Automated Test Scenarios

The real power is in automated testing. Here's a test case that validates a complete pick-pack-ship flow using mock devices:

from odoo.tests.common import TransactionCase
from odoo.addons.iot.mock import MockDeviceRegistry


class TestWarehouseIoTFlow(TransactionCase):

    @classmethod
    def setUpClass(cls):
        super().setUpClass()
        cls.registry = MockDeviceRegistry(cls.env)
        cls.scanner = cls.registry.register_fixture(
            'mock_devices/barcode_scanner.json'
        )
        cls.scale = cls.registry.register_fixture(
            'mock_devices/scale.json'
        )

    def test_pick_pack_ship_with_mock_scanner(self):
        """Full picking flow using simulated barcode scanner."""
        # Create a delivery order
        picking = self.env['stock.picking'].create({
            'picking_type_id': self.env.ref(
                'stock.picking_type_out'
            ).id,
            'location_id': self.env.ref(
                'stock.stock_location_stock'
            ).id,
            'location_dest_id': self.env.ref(
                'stock.stock_location_customers'
            ).id,
        })

        # Simulate scanning the picking barcode
        self.scanner.trigger('scan', index=2)
        # → Emits "WH/OUT/00042"

        # Simulate scanning product barcode
        self.scanner.trigger('scan', index=0)
        # → Emits "5901234123457"

        # Simulate weighing the package
        weight = self.scale.trigger('read_weight')
        self.assertEqual(weight['value'], 2.450)
        self.assertTrue(weight['stable'])

        # Validate the picking
        picking.button_validate()
        self.assertEqual(picking.state, 'done')

Step 5: CI/CD Integration

Add IoT tests to your CI pipeline. Since mock drivers require no hardware, they run on any Linux CI runner—GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins—without special configuration.

name: IoT Integration Tests
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:16
        env:
          POSTGRES_PASSWORD: odoo
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Run IoT mock tests
        run: |
          ./odoo-bin --iot-mock \
            --test-tags /module.test_warehouse_iot \
            --stop-after-init \
            -d test_db

What This Means for Your Budget and Timeline

For the CTO or project sponsor reading this, here's the translation from technical improvement to business impact: