How can I detect BLE Scan Requests?

[gero]

Hi, I am pretty new to programming with NRF boards and I've hit a bit of a roadblock.

I started with the BLE Event Trigger example and I have managed to retrieve BLE advertising packets along with details corresponding to them. However, I noticed that the scan does not appear to be picking up on other types of packets such as scan request packets in particular.

Is there a way for me to to be able to detect nearby scan requests with Zephyr? I want to be able to detect these packets and output information about them.

[Hieu]

Hi gero,

Which of the following scenario are you trying to get your board to do?

• As a central device, scans and detects Scan Request packets from other Central/Observer devices
• As a central device, sends Scan Request and gets Scan Response advertising packets from advertisers
• As a peripheral device, detects Scan Request packets from other Central/Observer devices

Are you new to Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) in general, or only to nRF boards?
If you are new to BLE in general, I recommend checking out our free online course Bluetooth Low Energy Fundamentals

Hieu

[gero]

Hi Hieu,

I am aiming for the first option. I would like it to function as a central device and pick up on scan request packets sent out by nearby devices.

[Hieu]

Hi gero,

A device in the Observer role is usually not interested in the Scan Request of other Observer, so the stack does not pass such scan result up to the application layer.

Why are you interested in this?

If you really need to detect Scan Request from Observers, you can setup an Advertiser on your device, and get the data from the scanned callback.