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Legacy Personal Blogs TI SensorTag CC2650 as BLE sniffer - talk to Cypress PSoC
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  • Author Author: Jan Cumps
  • Date Created: 30 Nov 2015 7:54 PM Date Created
  • Views 2530 views
  • Likes 4 likes
  • Comments 7 comments
  • bluetooth
  • ble
  • sensortag
  • pioneer_kit
  • bluetooth_low_energy
  • texas_instruments
  • proc
  • iot
  • simplelink
  • cypress
  • cc2650
  • feature_tutorial
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TI SensorTag CC2650 as BLE sniffer - talk to Cypress PSoC

Jan Cumps
Jan Cumps
30 Nov 2015

In a previous post I connected the Texas Instruments SensorTag talk to a Cypress CySmart USB Dongle and made the dongle sniff Bluetooth traffic. This time I'll switch this around. We'll turn the SensorTag into a BLE sniffer, and let it analyze the payload of the Cypress PSoc 4 / PRoC BLE kit.

 


image

 

The SimpleLink SensorTag is a tiny evaluation kit with an ARM Cortex controller with embedded BLE, and a number of sensors.

You typically use it to try out Bluetooth scenarios with sensors, so using it as a BLE sniffer is not its natural habitat, but it works.

image

 

Texas Instruments has two BLE traffic analysis programs, BLE Device Monitor and BTool. You normally use them with a CC2540 USB Dongle that's loaded with sniffer firmware.

The dongle talks to the device under test (some Bluetooth Low Energy device that you want to sniff). The analysis programs talk to the dongle and reveal the internals of the BLE payload.

The way it works is that the dongle's firmware exposes an API, and the tools call the API functions over USB.

 

Sniffer FirmWare for the SensorTag

 

TI has ported that CC2540 firmware to the SensorTag. It's not widely published. I stumbled on it when doing the SimpleLink Academy.

It turns out that when you install the Academy software on your computer, that ported project is part of the examples.

 

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The only thing you have to do is navigate to the TI Resource Explorer in Code Composer Studio, find the HostTestTag example, and follow the instructions. A wizard helps you from import via build and debug config to load and execution.

image

 

Once all the steps are done, you can start sniffing. First I connected the SensorTag with the TI BLE Device Monitor,

started the Cypress PSoC 4, and made the SensorTag mate with the PSoC.

image

All worked perfectly. The two connected, and I could retrieve the BLE attributes.

 

My second test was with the TI BTool. That's another application that lets you sniff and talk at low level.

I did the same drill, and again it worked straight away.

image

 

Now that I'm able to sniff traffic with both the CyPress CySmart dongle and the TI SensorTag, I can use the analysis tools from both.

I can choose the best tool at the right moment - except when I'm developing on the SensorTag. It can't sniff itself image .

 

Related Posts
Talking BLE with the TI SensorTag CC2650 and the Cypress CySmart USB Dongle
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Top Comments

  • DAB
    DAB over 9 years ago +1
    Great post. I had not thought to combining the TI and Cy BLE capabilities, but I see now that it can be done fairly easily. Thanks DAB
  • fvan
    fvan over 9 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps +1
    Glad to see you're still having fun with the debugger (and hooray for employer smartphone!)
  • fvan
    fvan over 9 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

    Glad to see you're still having fun with the debugger image (and hooray for employer smartphone!)

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  • Jan Cumps
    Jan Cumps over 9 years ago

    I've uploaded a video that shows how to debug the SensorTag firmware while it's talking BLE to an Android App.

    (works while it's connected to an iOS App or a dongle too, but anyways, my setup was Android).

     

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    Using the SensorTag debugger that fvan sent me.

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  • Jan Cumps
    Jan Cumps over 9 years ago in reply to Former Member

    No, I haven't. The firmware is currently sending attributes over serial. I never tried to adapt this program for other uses.

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 9 years ago

    Hi.

    Just stumbled across this thread.  I am interested in adapting the sniffer to dump out packets to the UART of the CC2650.  Have you gone into the inner workings of the sniffer firmware? Any ideas where to start?

    Many thanks

    Colin

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  • Former Member
    Former Member over 9 years ago

    Perfect !

    May be helps for you https://github.com/x893/BTool

    this 1.40.2 version

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