Mobile Device Dimension (Unknown Generic Android Mobile)

[tkirwin]

I am looking for confirmation that Adobe's Mobile Device Dimension is no longer able to identify the actual Android phone device used when a visitor views our website due in part to Google Chrome's User Agent Reduction Initiative?  Note: Most of the Android devices are being aggregated under "Unknown Generic Android Mobile". Our query regarding this concern could not be answered by our Adobe Professional Consultant assigned to us.

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Hmmm I am not sure if that is the cause... I am seeing a lot of those devices in my data too, but when I break this down by Operating System, it seems to be predominantly Android 10? Meanwhile, I see new devices like Google Pixel 9 coming through in my data. I can also see a distribution of Browsers there too...

When I come at it from the other side, looking at Chrome 136.0, I can see this broken out to the generic and specific devices.

I haven't tried this yet, but if you aren't already, you could try enabling "Collect high entropy user-agent client hints" in your implementation? This is supposed to help with device reporting.

[Sergei_Kalinichenko]

Hi Jennifer, 

If I may continue this thread and not opening new one, please

I'm facing suspicious results in device reporting for simple (yet a little old fashioned web page). Mobile devices are only 29%, but that maybe be okay, whereas the real surprise is with android vs ios breakdown - Adobe return 99.8% pro iOS which in my opinion is extremely suspicious.

I went to appetize[.]io to emulate devices and payload from Android doesn't differ much from iOS emulation.

From this thread and also walking over Mobile Device going into 'Unknown generic android mobile'  I understood that you and other participants experience lack of transparency inside Android category, while share of Android devices remains 'okay'. Am I correct?

If so, by the chance you can advice me with the direction for further research? I worry if it is not a lost of category, but just lost of devices!

Thank you in advance!

[Jennifer_Dungan]

No problem @Sergei_Kalinichenko also, continuing the conversation here may help the original poster, and anyone who comes across this post encountering the same problem.

You are correct, our Android share seemed unimpacted... that said, our website seems to have a fairly even split between iOS and Android, but our mobile apps have about a 70% market share... 

99.8% does seem suspicious... but I mean, depending on your site, it might be legitimate... I would expect sites like Apple to have overwhelming traffic from iPhones and Mac (lol)... I don't know your site, and where it operates to know if this would be legitimate or not... but it does seem odd.  Have you considered the possibility of a script error on Android that might be causing a large portion of your analytics? Do you have any real devices to test with?

I am not sure if the emulator you used would properly simulate the user agent, most emulators focus on trying to make the code function as the device than sending a proper user agent... I would be a little distrustful that the user agents aren't quite right... 

[Vinay_Chauhan]

From what I understand, it’s partially tied to Chrome’s User-Agent Reduction initiative, which has been phasing out granular device details over time. That seems to impact what Adobe can pick up, especially for Android users coming through Chrome.

One thing worth checking is whether Client Hints are fully enabled in your implementation. Specifically, enabling high entropy UA client hints could help restore some of the lost detail, assuming your data collection setup supports it. Adobe does support this (I believe via the ECID library and AppMeasurement), but it’s not always turned on by default.

I would recommend confirming whether your tag setup is requesting those extra hints, it may not solve everything, but could give a more complete picture.

[Sukrity_Wadhwa]

Hi @tkirwin,

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Thank you!