nRF Sniffer for nRF54L15DK

[vytautas]

Hello,

Is it possible to make the nRF Sniffer for Bluetooth LE application work on a nRF54L15?

https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-Sniffer-for-Bluetooth-LE

[chuck rekiere]

We are attempting build radio_test, announcement code and sniffer into one hex file.  We have successfully built radio_test and announcemts into one executable.  Befor integrating the sniffer wanted to verify that the sniffer could be built and operate correctly. 

From your; comments above is this correct the 802.15.4 sniffer is only available for specific channels ( nrf802154_sniffer.py),  the Bluetooth Low Energy in nrf_sniffer_for_bluetooth_le_4.1.1.zip, is there source code for the Bluetooth Low Energy (one that can do all channels)?

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[PaKa]

So first about the 2 sniffer codes:

The 802.15.4 sniffer supports sniffing on 802.15.4 protocol. That means it supports sniffing all the channels used by 802.15.4, 16 in total. These all use the 802.15.4 modulation scheme, DSSS O-QPSK and it will ignore all other modulation schemes and packages that are not 802.15.4 compliant. It requries 100% of the radio time so can't be combined with other SW.

The Bluetooth LE sniffer supports sniffing Bluetooth LE protocol. That means it supports sniffing all teh channels used by Bluetooth LE, 40 in total. These all use the Bluetooth LE modulation scheme, GFSK. and will ignore all other modulation schemes and packages that are not Bluetooth LE compliant. It requries 100% of the radio time so can't be combined with other SW. Source code for the Bluetooth Sniffer is not available.

As you can see these are 2 very different pieces of SW with totally different use cases so there is not one item to solve both issues. These also have requirements that mean you can't combine them with other SW so not a good target to integrate with the other functionality you want in.

What is the intended use case for this?

[chuck rekiere]

Much appreciated the detailed sniffer descriptions.

Use case:

We have multiple NORDIC DK boards (8-12) of the same model nRF52840 and wish to dynamically configure some as sniffers in combination with wireshark and some as transmitters (using a modified radio_test) to create traffic congestion with testing a bluetooth device.

We were hoping to be able to tell the individual nRF52840 devices to be a sniffer or transmitter via a menu. Which you have shared is not a good target and the Bluetooth LE sniffer does not have source code available.  Each nRF52840 will only either be a sniffer or a transmitter for a given test.

1. From you knowledge is there a better solution for what we are trying to accomplish?  We were using the dk boards so as to not have to touch a reset button.

2. We were trying to avoid re-flashing the boards between tests ?  My knowledge may be old, devices only have so many times they can be flashed.

3. Is there a bootloader type option where multiple images can be stored on the device and selected on reboot?

4.  Is the Bluetooth LE sniffer a Nordic developed software and proprietary?

[PaKa]

1. not really. Using nRF52840 Dongles may allow you to have more boards for the same cost so avoid switching functionality at all.

2. Correct, the flash and RRAM type NVM will always have limited write/erase cycles. The limit is still quite high so unless you reconfigure all the time you will need some time before you run out of this.

3. This is possible but not something that is supported in the SDK so you would have to build this yourself. Will not support the sniffer code though.

4. Yes, this is a Nordic developed software and it is closed source.