nrF51 Dongle

[Vijay Annamalaisamy]

Hello Nordic Team,

We are working on a BLE project with RSL10 board from OnSemi. We need a BLE sniffer to capture and analyze the BLE packets in the air for debugging purposes.  Currently we are going through the BLE 5.0 sniffers available in the market. We need below basic clarifications about this nrF51 Dongle

1. This nRF51 dongle can be used to capture BLE packets only when nrF series SoC/microcontrollers is used in the peripheral and central? Hope it can capture BLE packets from any microcontrollers/SoC.

2. This dongle supports BLE 5.0?

3. I hope integration with wireshark is possible and the data at all the layers(like PHY, link layer, L2CAP, GATT, GAP) can be seen in wireshark. Please confirm.

4. Could you please share us the user guide link? Sorry, I tried but was not able to locate it correctly.

Thanks,

Vijay A,

[Kenneth]

The nRF sniffer is intended to be used when developing nRF enabled products, though it likely will be able to sniff any BLE connection. I believe your questions are answered by downloading the latest nRF sniffer and documentation:

Download: https://www.nordicsemi.com/Software-and-tools/Development-Tools/nRF-Sniffer-for-Bluetooth-LE/Download#infotabs

User guide: https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/topic/ug_sniffer_ble/UG/sniffer_ble/intro.html

Packet details: https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/topic/ug_sniffer_ble/UG/sniffer_ble/inspecting_data.html

[Vijay Annamalaisamy]

Thank You Kenneth. Could you please confirm on the below queries? It will be helpful

1. This dongle supports BLE 5.0?

2. I hope integration with wireshark is possible and the data at all the layers(like PHY, link layer, L2CAP, GATT, GAP) can be seen in wireshark. Please confirm.

[Kenneth]

1. The specific dongle you refer to doesn't support 5.0, I believe an nRF52-DK may be a better option. Also I believe there are many features in BLE5 that are optional, I am not sure which are supported (For instance I believe some features for extended advertisment on secondary phy is not supported). Also, if you are planning to run for instance high speed throughput test, then likely the nRF sniffer is not the choice for you. But overall it provide a good tool for most applications out there.

2. It can provide the raw data if needed, but typically represent the data in a more readable way (e.g. ATT, L2CAP etc).

[Vijay Annamalaisamy]

Thank You Kenneth. Noted the points. Then I believe "nRF52840 Dongle" shall be a better choice. I believe "nRF52840 Dongle" falls under nRF52-DK series right? Please confirm 

[Kenneth]

That specific dongle can't be used with the nRF sniffer tool, so you are better off using nRF52840-DK or nRF52-DK (nRF52832).

Best regards,
Kenneth