Emulation | Playwright Python
Introduction
With Playwright you can test your app on any browser as well as emulate a real device such as a mobile phone or tablet. Simply configure the devices you would like to emulate and Playwright will simulate the browser behavior such as "userAgent", "screenSize", "viewport" and if it "hasTouch" enabled. You can also emulate the "geolocation", "locale" and "timezone" for all tests or for a specific test as well as set the "permissions" to show notifications or change the "colorScheme".
Devices
Playwright comes with a registry of device parameters using playwright.devices for selected desktop, tablet and mobile devices. It can be used to simulate browser behavior for a specific device such as user agent, screen size, viewport and if it has touch enabled. All tests will run with the specified device parameters.
- Sync
- Async
from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright, Playwright
def run(playwright: Playwright):
iphone_13 = playwright.devices['iPhone 13']
browser = playwright.webkit.launch(headless=False)
context = browser.new_context(
**iphone_13,
)
with sync_playwright() as playwright:
run(playwright)

Viewport
The viewport is included in the device but you can override it for some tests with page.set_viewport_size().
Test file:
The same works inside a test file.
- Sync
- Async
# Create context with given viewport
context = browser.new_context(
viewport={ 'width': 1280, 'height': 1024 }
)
# Resize viewport for individual page
page.set_viewport_size({"width": 1600, "height": 1200})
# Emulate high-DPI
context = browser.new_context(
viewport={ 'width': 2560, 'height': 1440 },
device_scale_factor=2,
)
isMobile
Whether the meta viewport tag is taken into account and touch events are enabled.
- Sync
- Async
context = browser.new_context(
is_mobile=False
)
Locale & Timezone
Emulate the browser Locale and Timezone which can be set globally for all tests in the config and then overridden for particular tests.
- Sync
- Async
context = browser.new_context(
locale='de-DE',
timezone_id='Europe/Berlin',
)

Permissions
Allow app to show system notifications.
- Sync
- Async
context = browser.new_context(
permissions=['notifications'],
)
Allow notifications for a specific domain.
- Sync
- Async
context.grant_permissions(['notifications'], origin='https://skype.com')
Revoke all permissions with browser_context.clear_permissions().
- Sync
- Async
context.clear_permissions()
Geolocation
Grant "geolocation" permissions and set geolocation to a specific area.
- Sync
- Async
context = browser.new_context(
geolocation={"longitude": 41.890221, "latitude": 12.492348},
permissions=["geolocation"]
)

Change the location later:
- Sync
- Async
context.set_geolocation({"longitude": 48.858455, "latitude": 2.294474})
Note you can only change geolocation for all pages in the context.
Emulate the users "colorScheme". Supported values are 'light' and 'dark'. You can also emulate the media type with page.emulate_media().
- Sync
- Async
# Create context with dark mode
context = browser.new_context(
color_scheme='dark' # or 'light'
)
# Create page with dark mode
page = browser.new_page(
color_scheme='dark' # or 'light'
)
# Change color scheme for the page
page.emulate_media(color_scheme='dark')
# Change media for page
page.emulate_media(media='print')

User Agent
The User Agent is included in the device and therefore you will rarely need to change it however if you do need to test a different user agent you can override it with the userAgent property.
- Sync
- Async
context = browser.new_context(
user_agent='My user agent'
)
Offline
Emulate the network being offline.
- Sync
- Async
context = browser.new_context(
offline=True
)
JavaScript Enabled
Emulate a user scenario where JavaScript is disabled.
- Sync
- Async
context = browser.new_context(
java_script_enabled=False
)