Guide
Adding a second machine
One Mac handles more phones than people expect. The limit, when it arrives, is rarely the one you planned for.
When one machine stops being enough
Each active device runs its own harness process on the Mac. Idle phones cost almost nothing; phones running at the same time cost real memory. A Mac mini with 16GB comfortably drives around ten concurrent devices, and considerably more if their schedules are spread out rather than stacked on the hour.
Long before that, the practical limit is usually USB. Adding a machine solves both at once, since it brings its own ports.
How work splits
Each phone belongs to exactly one machine, the one it is physically plugged into. There is no load balancing to configure, because a device cannot be driven by a Mac it is not connected to.
Both machines poll for work independently. A run is claimed for one specific device, and the claim is exclusive at the database level, so two agents can never pick up the same job.
Adding one
Install the agent on the second Mac using its own command from Machines. Each machine gets its own token; do not copy the first one across. Plug the phones in, enrol them, and they appear alongside everything else.
Nothing about the dashboard changes. Devices are listed by workspace, not by machine, so a schedule is created the same way regardless of which Mac holds the phone.
What to watch as it grows
- Signing. A weekly re-enrol is tolerable for one phone and unbearable for twenty. A paid developer account becomes worth it quickly, as covered under signing.
- Spread the schedules. Twenty phones all starting at 09:00 is a thundering herd on one USB bus. Stagger them.
- Device limits. Plans cover one, three, ten or thirty enrolled devices. Machines themselves are not limited.