diff --git a/src/dispatcher/androidDevice.js b/src/dispatcher/androidDevice.js
index 847757958..166d14925 100644
--- a/src/dispatcher/androidDevice.js
+++ b/src/dispatcher/androidDevice.js
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 import AndroidDevice from '../devices/AndroidDevice';
 import child_process from 'child_process';
 import promiseRetry from 'promise-retry';
+import {promisify} from 'util';
 import type {Store} from '../reducers/index.js';
 import type BaseDevice from '../devices/BaseDevice';
 import type Logger from '../fb-stubs/Logger.js';
@@ -62,31 +63,56 @@ function getRunningEmulatorName(id: string): Promise<?string> {
 }
 
 export default (store: Store, logger: Logger) => {
-  // Using this client before adb server is started up will cause failures.
-  // this gets around this by waiting for listDevices first, which ensures
-  // the server is up and running before allowing any other operations.
-
+  /* Adbkit will attempt to start the adb server if it's not already running,
+     however, it sometimes fails with ENOENT errors. So instead, we start it
+     manually before requesting a client. */
   function createClient() {
-    const unsafeClient = adb.createClient();
-    return promiseRetry(
-      (retry, number) => {
-        return unsafeClient
-          .listDevices()
-          .then(() => {
-            return unsafeClient;
-          })
-          .catch(e => {
-            console.warn(`Failed to start adb client. Retrying. ${e.message}`);
-            retry(e);
-          });
-      },
-      {
-        minTimeout: 200,
-        retries: 5,
-      },
-    );
+    const adbPath = process.env.ANDROID_HOME
+      ? `${process.env.ANDROID_HOME}/platform-tools/adb`
+      : 'adb';
+    return recordSuccessMetric(
+      promisify(child_process.exec)(`${adbPath} start-server`)
+        .then(result => {
+          if (result.error) {
+            throw new Error(
+              `Failed to start adb server: ${result.stderr.toString()}`,
+            );
+          }
+        })
+        .then(adb.createClient),
+      'createADBClient.shell',
+    ).catch(err => {
+      console.error(
+        'Failed to create adb client using shell adb command. Trying with adbkit',
+      );
+
+      /* In the event that starting adb with the above method fails, fallback
+         to using adbkit, though its known to be unreliable. */
+      const unsafeClient = adb.createClient();
+      return recordSuccessMetric(
+        promiseRetry(
+          (retry, number) => {
+            return unsafeClient
+              .listDevices()
+              .then(() => {
+                return unsafeClient;
+              })
+              .catch(e => {
+                console.warn(
+                  `Failed to start adb client. Retrying. ${e.message}`,
+                );
+                retry(e);
+              });
+          },
+          {
+            minTimeout: 200,
+            retries: 5,
+          },
+        ),
+        'createADBClient.adbkit',
+      );
+    });
   }
-  const clientPromise = recordSuccessMetric(createClient(), 'createADBClient');
 
   const watchAndroidDevices = () => {
     // get emulators
@@ -105,7 +131,7 @@ export default (store: Store, logger: Logger) => {
       },
     );
 
-    clientPromise
+    recordSuccessMetric(createClient(), 'createADBClient')
       .then(client => {
         client
           .trackDevices()