where does expo deploy the server?

Where is the expo server running when I develop my app and test on my iPhone in my home network. Is it running on my router?

Hi

When you run expo start (or npm start or yarn start which just run expo start for you) on your laptop/desktop computer, expo starts up some processes on your computer which act as a development server that serves the JavaScript, splash screen, icons and other assets to the Expo app running on your phone.

Usually you would have both your computer and your phone connected to your home network and e.g. if your computer has IP address 192.168.5.6 then the Expo app on your phone would connect to that IP address to download the JavaScript and assets. This IP address would be printed when you run expo start. e.g.:

$ expo start
Starting project at /Path/To/your-app
Expo DevTools is running at http://localhost:19002
Press d to open DevTools now, or shift-d to always open it automatically.
Starting Metro Bundler on port 19001.
Tunnel ready.

  exp://192.168.5.6:19000

If your app needs to make network requests to a server (e.g. for checking the temperature if it is a weather app) then that is completely separate from the above. Your code would tell the Expo app to fetch the data from the server specified in the code.

I hope I have explained things clearly enough :slight_smile:

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Thanks Wodin,

That explains it perfectly.

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