Detecting Device Type in a Web Application

Detecting Device Type in a web application

You'll have to read the User-Agent header from the request and decide on that.

In vanilla servlet apps, a crude way of doing it is:

public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request,
                HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
  if(request.getHeader("User-Agent").contains("Mobi")) {
    //you're in mobile land
  } else {
    //nope, this is probably a desktop
  }
}

How to detect device type using javascript

I advise you check out http://wurfl.io/

In a nutshell, if you import a tiny JS file:

<script type='text/javascript' src="//wurfl.io/wurfl.js"></script>

you will be left with a JSON object that looks like:

{
 "complete_device_name":"Google Nexus 7",
 "is_mobile":true,
 "form_factor":"Tablet"
}

(that's assuming you are using a Nexus 7, of course) and you will be able to do things like:

if(WURFL.form_factor == "Tablet"){
    //dostuff();
}

This is what you are looking for.

Disclaimer: I work for the company that offers this free service. Thanks.

Standard way to detect mobile browsers in a web application based on the http request

Wouldn't the standard way be to check the user agent? Here's a database of user agents you can use to detect mobile browsers.

How to detect a mobile device using jQuery

Editor's note: user agent detection is not a recommended technique for modern web apps. See the comments below this answer for confirmation of this fact. It is suggested to use one of the other answers using feature detection and/or media queries.

Instead of using jQuery you can use simple JavaScript to detect it:

if( /Android|webOS|iPhone|iPad|iPod|BlackBerry|IEMobile|Opera Mini/i.test(navigator.userAgent) ) {
 // some code..
}

Or you can combine them both to make it more accessible through jQuery...

$.browser.device = (/android|webos|iphone|ipad|ipod|blackberry|iemobile|opera mini/i.test(navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase()));

Now $.browser will return "device" for all above devices

Note: $.browser removed on jQuery v1.9.1. But you can use this by using jQuery migration plugin Code

A more thorough version:

var isMobile = false; //initiate as false
// device detection
if(/(android|bb\d+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada\/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od)|ipad|iris|kindle|Android|Silk|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)\/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up\.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows (ce|phone)|xda|xiino/i.test(navigator.userAgent) 
    || /1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s\-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|\-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw\-(n|u)|c55\/|capi|ccwa|cdm\-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd\-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc\-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|\-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(\-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf\-5|g\-mo|go(\.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd\-(m|p|t)|hei\-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs\-c|ht(c(\-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i\-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |\-|\/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |\/)|klon|kpt |kwc\-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|\/(k|l|u)|50|54|\-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1\-w|m3ga|m50\/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m\-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(\-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)\-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|\-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn\-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt\-g|qa\-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|\-[2-7]|i\-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55\/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h\-|oo|p\-)|sdk\/|se(c(\-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh\-|shar|sie(\-|m)|sk\-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h\-|v\-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl\-|tdg\-|tel(i|m)|tim\-|t\-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m\-|m3|m5)|tx\-9|up(\.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|\-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(\-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas\-|your|zeto|zte\-/i.test(navigator.userAgent.substr(0,4))) { 
    isMobile = true;
}

Detecting the device type when an angular universal app pre-rendered on the server

I had a quick look at the code and I think you can call setDeviceInfo with a user agent string that you can retrieve from the request headers

app.module.ts

import {Request} from 'express';
import {REQUEST} from '@nguniversal/express-engine/tokens';

constructor(@Inject(PLATFORM_ID) private platformId, 
            @Optional() @Inject(REQUEST) protected request: Request,
            private deviceService: DeviceDetectorService)
{
    if(!isPlatformBrowser(platformId))
    {
        this.deviceService.setDeviceInfo(request.headers['user-agent']);
    }
}

Detecting a mobile browser

Using Regex (from detectmobilebrowsers.com):

Here's a function that uses an insanely long and comprehensive regex which returns a true or false value depending on whether or not the user is browsing with a mobile.

window.mobileCheck = function() {
  let check = false;
  (function(a){if(/(android|bb\d+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada\/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od)|iris|kindle|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|mobile.+firefox|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)\/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up\.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows ce|xda|xiino/i.test(a)||/1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s\-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|\-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw\-(n|u)|c55\/|capi|ccwa|cdm\-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd\-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc\-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|\-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(\-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf\-5|g\-mo|go(\.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd\-(m|p|t)|hei\-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs\-c|ht(c(\-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i\-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |\-|\/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |\/)|klon|kpt |kwc\-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|\/(k|l|u)|50|54|\-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1\-w|m3ga|m50\/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m\-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(\-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)\-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|\-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn\-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt\-g|qa\-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|\-[2-7]|i\-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55\/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h\-|oo|p\-)|sdk\/|se(c(\-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh\-|shar|sie(\-|m)|sk\-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h\-|v\-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl\-|tdg\-|tel(i|m)|tim\-|t\-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m\-|m3|m5)|tx\-9|up(\.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|\-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(\-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas\-|your|zeto|zte\-/i.test(a.substr(0,4))) check = true;})(navigator.userAgent||navigator.vendor||window.opera);
  return check;
};

For those wishing to include tablets in this test (though arguably, you shouldn't), you can use the following function:

window.mobileAndTabletCheck = function() {
  let check = false;
  (function(a){if(/(android|bb\d+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada\/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od)|iris|kindle|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|mobile.+firefox|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)\/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up\.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows ce|xda|xiino|android|ipad|playbook|silk/i.test(a)||/1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s\-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|\-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw\-(n|u)|c55\/|capi|ccwa|cdm\-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd\-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc\-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|\-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(\-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf\-5|g\-mo|go(\.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd\-(m|p|t)|hei\-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs\-c|ht(c(\-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i\-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |\-|\/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |\/)|klon|kpt |kwc\-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|\/(k|l|u)|50|54|\-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1\-w|m3ga|m50\/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m\-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(\-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)\-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|\-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn\-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt\-g|qa\-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|\-[2-7]|i\-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55\/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h\-|oo|p\-)|sdk\/|se(c(\-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh\-|shar|sie(\-|m)|sk\-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h\-|v\-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl\-|tdg\-|tel(i|m)|tim\-|t\-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m\-|m3|m5)|tx\-9|up(\.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|\-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(\-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas\-|your|zeto|zte\-/i.test(a.substr(0,4))) check = true;})(navigator.userAgent||navigator.vendor||window.opera);
  return check;
};

Using navigator.userAgentData

You may also use navigator.userAgentData.mobile, but userAgentData is still experimental, so it is not recommended for use in production.

const isMobile = navigator.userAgentData.mobile; //resolves true/false

Compatibility chart for userAgentData

The Original Answer

You can do this by simply running through a list of devices and checking if the useragent matches anything like so:

  function detectMob() {
    const toMatch = [
        /Android/i,
        /webOS/i,
        /iPhone/i,
        /iPad/i,
        /iPod/i,
        /BlackBerry/i,
        /Windows Phone/i
    ];
    
    return toMatch.some((toMatchItem) => {
        return navigator.userAgent.match(toMatchItem);
    });
}

However since you believe that this method is unreliable, You could assume that any device that had a resolution of 800x600 or less was a mobile device too, narrowing your target even more (although these days many mobile devices have much greater resolutions than this)

i.e

  function detectMob() {
    return ( ( window.innerWidth <= 800 ) && ( window.innerHeight <= 600 ) );
  }

Reference:

Detecting Browser and Devices with javascript

How to detect the device on React SSR App with Next.js?

LATEST UPDATE:

So if you don't mind doing it client side you can use the dynamic importing as suggested by a few people below. This will be for use cases where you use static page generation.

i created a component which passes all the react-device-detect exports as props (it would be wise to filter out only the needed exports because then does not treeshake)

// Device/Device.tsx

import { ReactNode } from 'react'
import * as rdd from 'react-device-detect'

interface DeviceProps {
  children: (props: typeof rdd) => ReactNode
}
export default function Device(props: DeviceProps) {
  return <div className="device-layout-component">{props.children(rdd)}</div>
}

// Device/index.ts

import dynamic from 'next/dynamic'

const Device = dynamic(() => import('./Device'), { ssr: false })

export default Device

and then when you want to make use of the component you can just do

const Example = () => {
  return (
    <Device>
      {({ isMobile }) => {
        if (isMobile) return <div>My Mobile View</div>
        return <div>My Desktop View</div>
      }}
    </Device>
  )
}

Personally I just use a hook to do this, although the initial props method is better.

import { useEffect } from 'react'

const getMobileDetect = (userAgent: NavigatorID['userAgent']) => {
  const isAndroid = () => Boolean(userAgent.match(/Android/i))
  const isIos = () => Boolean(userAgent.match(/iPhone|iPad|iPod/i))
  const isOpera = () => Boolean(userAgent.match(/Opera Mini/i))
  const isWindows = () => Boolean(userAgent.match(/IEMobile/i))
  const isSSR = () => Boolean(userAgent.match(/SSR/i))
  const isMobile = () => Boolean(isAndroid() || isIos() || isOpera() || isWindows())
  const isDesktop = () => Boolean(!isMobile() && !isSSR())
  return {
    isMobile,
    isDesktop,
    isAndroid,
    isIos,
    isSSR,
  }
}
const useMobileDetect = () => {
  useEffect(() => {}, [])
  const userAgent = typeof navigator === 'undefined' ? 'SSR' : navigator.userAgent
  return getMobileDetect(userAgent)
}

export default useMobileDetect

I had the problem that scroll animation was annoying on mobile devices so I made a device based enabled scroll animation component;

import React, { ReactNode } from 'react'
import ScrollAnimation, { ScrollAnimationProps } from 'react-animate-on-scroll'
import useMobileDetect from 'src/utils/useMobileDetect'

interface DeviceScrollAnimation extends ScrollAnimationProps {
  device: 'mobile' | 'desktop'
  children: ReactNode
}

export default function DeviceScrollAnimation({ device, animateIn, animateOut, initiallyVisible, ...props }: DeviceScrollAnimation) {
  const currentDevice = useMobileDetect()

  const flag = device === 'mobile' ? currentDevice.isMobile() : device === 'desktop' ? currentDevice.isDesktop() : true

  return (
    <ScrollAnimation
      animateIn={flag ? animateIn : 'none'}
      animateOut={flag ? animateOut : 'none'}
      initiallyVisible={flag ? initiallyVisible : true}
      {...props}
    />
  )
}

UPDATE:

so after further going down the rabbit hole, the best solution i came up with is using the react-device-detect in a useEffect, if you further inspect the device detect you will notice that it exports const's that are set via the ua-parser-js lib

export const UA = new UAParser();

export const browser = UA.getBrowser();
export const cpu = UA.getCPU();
export const device = UA.getDevice();
export const engine = UA.getEngine();
export const os = UA.getOS();
export const ua = UA.getUA();
export const setUA = (uaStr) => UA.setUA(uaStr);

This results in the initial device being the server which causes false detection.

I forked the repo and created and added a ssr-selector which requires you to pass in a user-agent. which could be done using the initial props

UPDATE:

Because of Ipads not giving a correct or rather well enough defined user-agent, see this issue, I decided to create a hook to better detect the device

import { useEffect, useState } from 'react'

function isTouchDevice() {
  if (typeof window === 'undefined') return false
  const prefixes = ' -webkit- -moz- -o- -ms- '.split(' ')
  function mq(query) {
    return typeof window !== 'undefined' && window.matchMedia(query).matches
  }
  // @ts-ignore
  if ('ontouchstart' in window || (window?.DocumentTouch && document instanceof DocumentTouch)) return true
  const query = ['(', prefixes.join('touch-enabled),('), 'heartz', ')'].join('') // include the 'heartz' - https://git.io/vznFH
  return mq(query)
}

export default function useIsTouchDevice() {
  const [isTouch, setIsTouch] = useState(false)
  useEffect(() => {
    const { isAndroid, isIPad13, isIPhone13, isWinPhone, isMobileSafari, isTablet } = require('react-device-detect')
    setIsTouch(isTouch || isAndroid || isIPad13 || isIPhone13 || isWinPhone || isMobileSafari || isTablet || isTouchDevice())
  }, [])

  return isTouch

Because I require the package each time I call that hook, the UA info is updated, it also fixes to SSR out of sync warnings.

How to detect if request came from mobile device

The general answer is no. You get a header / message from a device. All you know about the device is in the header and the device can write what it wants in it. If you are talking about http requests (which is indicated by agent lookup) you can look at a header here:

All you can do "reliable" is to look for the user agent. In my case it is Mozilla Firefox on Linux. But I could fake it if I want.

Host: somesite.org
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:34.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/34.0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Referer: http://somesite.org/index.php?page=2
Cookie: rteStatus=rte; 
Cache-Control: max-age=0

Maybe you can get some informations from the referer if it is some chromium-mobile site or you can have a look at Accept and Accept-Enconding, maybe some mobile browsers accept different stuff. But there is no reliable way to determine the device but by its user Agent via header.

An other approach is to look if the request comes from an IP known as 3G or 4G pool. But this would just work if the requests is not coming via WLAN / WIFI. And I am not sure if a list of 3G / 4G IP address pools exists.

Detecting iOS / Android Operating system

You can test the user agent string:

/**
 * Determine the mobile operating system.
 * This function returns one of 'iOS', 'Android', 'Windows Phone', or 'unknown'.
 *
 * @returns {String}
 */
function getMobileOperatingSystem() {
    var userAgent = navigator.userAgent || navigator.vendor || window.opera;

    // Windows Phone must come first because its UA also contains "Android"
    if (/windows phone/i.test(userAgent)) {
        return "Windows Phone";
    }

    if (/android/i.test(userAgent)) {
        return "Android";
    }

    // iOS detection from: http://stackoverflow.com/a/9039885/177710
    if (/iPad|iPhone|iPod/.test(userAgent) && !window.MSStream) {
        return "iOS";
    }

    return "unknown";
}

Detecting Device Type in a Web Application