Cloud Phone Auto-Plays Xigua Videos: A New Way to Make Money from Your Side Hustle

Why Is Watermelon Video a Blue Ocean for Side Hustle Monetization?

Many people scroll through short videos daily just for entertainment, unaware that Watermelon Video’s (Xigua Video) playback revenue mechanism has long been a hidden goldmine for earning extra income. According to official data from the Watermelon Creator Platform, earnings per thousand plays range from 0.5 to 2 RMB, with higher rates in popular categories (e.g., movie commentary, funny compilations). If you can simultaneously operate 50 accounts, each generating 10,000 plays per day, your daily revenue can easily exceed 500 RMB. But here’s the problem—no single person can physically scroll videos on 50 phones at once, and Watermelon Video has strict risk controls against multi-account operations on the same device. Once the same device fingerprint is detected, accounts are penalized or even banned.

This is where cloud phones become the game-changer. A cloud phone is essentially a virtual phone running on cloud servers. You can remotely control any number of devices, each with independent hardware fingerprint parameters (IMEI, MAC, Android ID, etc.), fully simulating a real phone’s operating environment. Paired with automation scripts or RPA tools, you can achieve “unattended auto-scrolling” to free yourself from repetitive labor and precisely capture the platform’s rewards.

The Four Major Pain Points of Scrolling Videos on Regular Phones—How Many Have You Encountered?

High Device Costs, Hard to Break Revenue Thresholds

A phone capable of smoothly running multiple accounts costs at least 1,000 RMB. Managing 10 accounts requires an investment of 10,000 RMB, not to mention subsequent electricity and network costs. Cloud phones, on the other hand, are billed by the minute. A single device costs just a few yuan per day. For example, Nestbox offers device costs as low as 0.5 RMB/hour. Running 50 devices simultaneously costs less than 60 RMB per day—almost negligible compared to purchasing real phones.

Account Correlation Leads to Bans, Losing Everything

Watermelon Video’s risk control system identifies hundreds of hardware features like device IP, MAC address, camera, and sensors. Using a regular phone to repeatedly register or log into multiple accounts, once flagged as “bot operation” or “emulator environment,” leads to direct account suspension, voiding all previous play counts. Professional cloud phones like Nestbox use independent hardware fingerprints for each device, fundamentally avoiding correlation risks, with a tested anti-correlation rate of up to 99.9%.

Inability to Run 24/7

Humans need to eat and sleep, but play count rewards wait for no one. During late-night hours, competition is lower and the video recommendation pool is more active. If you can scroll videos around the clock, revenue at least doubles. A regular phone will overheat and throttle after 48 hours of continuous use, while cloud phones run in server rooms, online year-round without interruption. Nestbox promises 99.95% availability, meaning less than 4.3 hours of downtime per year.

Repetitive Operations Are Boring, Management Efficiency Is Low

Manual scrolling requires constant swiping, liking, commenting, and following—a person can handle at most 3–5 devices simultaneously. Cloud phones paired with RPA automation scripts can set up loop logic: swipe every 10–15 seconds, randomly like and share, even auto-fill comments (preset 100 different comments). Nestbox’s built-in RPA supports visual drag-and-drop configuration, requiring no programming skills—you can set up an “auto-scroll video” flow in just 10 minutes.

How to Build a Watermelon Video Scrolling Matrix with Cloud Phones

Step 1: Batch Create Cloud Phones and Deploy the Environment

Choose a reliable cloud phone provider. Take Nestbox as an example: after registration, you can batch-create devices directly in the console (supporting up to 100 at once). Each device is assigned an independent IP (from major domestic city IP pools) and comes pre-installed with the Watermelon Video app. Simply import account info (bulk import via TXT or Excel), and the system will automatically log in.

Step 2: Write an Automation Script for Scrolling Videos

The built-in RPA recorder in cloud phones can log operations like swiping, clicking, and waiting. For example:

Open Watermelon Video → Wait for the main page to load
Randomly swipe 3–5 times (simulating real browsing)
Click on a video to play → Wait 30–60 seconds (random play duration)
Randomly like/follow/comment (lower risk weighting)
Repeat the above actions

Nestbox’s RPA supports “loops + random delays,” perfectly mimicking human behavior. According to our team’s tests, a script with 5 action nodes allows a single device to scroll 120–150 videos per hour, with a play completion rate above 95%.

Step 3: Set Scheduled Tasks for Automatic Start/Stop

You can set scripts to run automatically from 8:00 to 23:00 (avoiding late-night low-efficiency periods) or run 24/7. Nestbox’s scheduled tasks are precise to the minute and support “auto-restart on disconnect.” Moreover, all device operation data (play count, likes, account status) can be tracked in real time on the backend, making it easy to adjust strategies promptly.

Real Data: A Case of Making 20,000 RMB per Month with Cloud Phone Video Scrolling

Our team once helped a creator specializing in “music video editing” use a cloud phone matrix. Initially, he had only 3 accounts, manually scrolling for 2 hours daily, earning about 1,500 RMB per month. We expanded his accounts to 30, all hosted on Nestbox cloud phones with independent IPs and fingerprint parameters, running automatically 12 hours a day. One month later, total play count reached 900,000, with actual revenue of 18,000 RMB (after deducting cloud phone costs of about 450 RMB). Key points:

Each account’s daily play count was kept between 3,000 and 5,000 to avoid triggering “abnormal growth” warnings
Each cloud phone logged in only one account, strictly following “one phone, one account”
The script included random comments (e.g., “This video is awesome,” “Bookmarked”) to boost interaction rates
IPs were changed weekly (Nestbox supports one-click IP switching)

Pitfall Guide: Three Details to Pay Attention to When Auto-Scrolling Videos

Control Cross-Account Interaction Rates

Do not have multiple accounts like or comment on the same video within the same time period; it may trigger a “group operation” judgment. It’s best to divide accounts into 3–5 groups, each using different IP segments with no interaction between groups. Nestbox’s “IP isolation” feature naturally supports this, allowing each device to bind an independent IP.

Set Reasonable Play Durations

In Watermelon Video’s revenue calculation mechanism, only videos played for more than 60 seconds count as valid plays. The script should set random play durations between 45 and 90 seconds—too short is invalid, too long may be flagged as “idling.” Nestbox’s RPA script library includes a dedicated “intelligent play time adjustment” template for short-video platforms that can be used directly.

Regularly Clear Cache and Change Device Fingerprints

Even with cloud phones, failing to change device fingerprints for a long time allows the platform to accumulate data. Restart cloud phones at least once a week (clear cache), and change device IDs every two weeks (Nestbox supports “one-click reset device fingerprint”). This operation takes just one click in the official console, making your accounts appear as “new users.”

There are many cloud phone brands on the market, but only a few truly combine “independent hardware fingerprint anti-correlation + unlimited multi-open + RPA automation” in one solution. Nestbox has become the top choice for side hustlers due to three core advantages:

True Hardware-Level Isolation: Each cloud phone’s CPU, memory, storage, camera, sensor, and button feedback are independently simulated, not simple app clones. Tested with 50 accounts logged into Watermelon Video simultaneously—zero correlation-related bans.
Built-in RPA Engine: No need to install third-party scripting tools. Record and run automation flows directly in the cloud phone console, supporting loops, conditional judgments, and random delays—more than three times more efficient than traditional keypress wizards.
Per-Minute Billing, Flexible and Controllable: You only pay for actual usage time; idle resources are automatically released. Compared to monthly-billed cloud phones, Nestbox suits “long-term batch usage” scenarios, with daily costs per device below 1.5 RMB.

If you’re planning to use cloud phones for automated operations on Watermelon Video, Douyin, Kuaishou, or other platforms, we recommend trying Nestbox’s free trial. From creation to running your first script, it takes half an hour. Save the money you’d spend on real phones and invest in a more efficient device matrix—turning your side hustle into a main gig is just a matter of time.