Set custom BLE scan window and scan interval for Nordic nRF52840 BLE dongle

[Stas Goncharenko]

Hello! I have a Nordic nRF52840 BLE dongle, and I want to scan/sniff BLE air using custom BLE parameters: scan window and scan interval. How can I achieve this correctly?

"Nordic Semiconductor AI" advises me two options:

• Using Zephyr APIs
• Using nRF5 SDK (SoftDevice S140)

also, "ChatGPT" advices me another option:

• Using pc-ble-driver-py

Ideally, I want to use nRF52840 BLE dongle with Wireshark and do scanning with custom BLE parameters (scan window and scan interval).

Also, good for me is to have flashed nRF52840 BLE dongle once and have possibility to configure BLE scan parameters (scan window and scan interval) by script or serial (not a Wireshark task, just another one).

What would you recommend as the best approach for this task?

[Hung Bui]

Hi Stas, 
Are you familiar with Nordic ecosystem especially the SDKs ? 
If you are not, there could be a challenge on what you want to achieve because there is no firmware that work out of the box for what you need. 

I think the easiest is to use pc-ble-driver-py (you will need to get the .hex file for the dongle from pc-ble-driver ) , see this post: RE: Access nRF52840 Dongle through pc-ble-driver-py library 

After that you need to look at the sample in the pc-ble-driver-py to see what you need to do to change the scan param , see https://github.com/NordicSemiconductor/pc-ble-driver-py/blob/release/0.16.2/pc_ble_driver_py/examples/heart_rate_collector.py

Another option is to use nRF Sniffer. It has wireshark supported. But you don't have an option to change the scan parameters because the sniffer just scan all the time. 

Last option is to use our SDKs , I think this would take most time but after you get familiar with the SDK you should be able to run  the central /scanner examples . And change the parameter as you wish. I would suggest to get started with NRF Connect SDK. Please take a look here: academy.nordicsemi.com/