Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
CC2540 USB Dongle and SmartRF Sniffer
As part of the development ecosystem around their CC254x family of ICs, Texas In‐
struments designed the
CC2540EMK-USB
(
Figure 6-4
), a low-cost CC2540-based USB
dongle that can be used with their free
SmartRF software
(
Figure 6-5
) to convert the
board into a BLE sniffer. This combination allows you to see all BLE data going out over
the air around you at the lowest possible level.
Figure 6-4. CC2540EMK-USB
This performs a function similar to the PCA10000/Wireshark combination
(
“PCA10000 USB Dongle and Wireshark” on page 86
), but it provides a different UI
that might be easier to work with in certain situations. The kits might be easier to source
in certain regions.
SmartRF-to-Wireshark Converter
If you prefer Wireshark (
“PCA10000 USB Dongle and Wireshark” on page 86
) as a data
analysis tool and have access to the CC2540 USB dongle (
“CC2540 USB Dongle and
SmartRF Sniffer” on page 88
), you will be happy to find out about
smartRFtoPcap
,
a
freely available tool that converts saved SmartRF data into a file format that WireShark
can understand.
You won't be able to stream live data into Wireshark the way you can with the PCA10000
and Nordic's Wireshark plugin, but having the option to convert previously captured
files might still be useful, since Wireshark includes numerous utilities to filter and search
inside your logged data.
