BLE·SNIFFER

BLE sniffer hardware: nRF52840, Ubertooth, and more

If advertisement scanning on your phone isn't enough and you need to capture the traffic inside live Bluetooth Low Energy connections, you'll need dedicated hardware. This guide walks through the common options — what each one does, what it costs, and which BLE versions it handles — so you can pick without buying twice.

First, a reality check from our scanner-vs-sniffer guide: if all you need is to see what's broadcasting nearby, identify a device, or measure proximity, you don't need any of this hardware. A phone does that job. The tools below are for connection packet capture — following two devices as they hop across 37 data channels.

Nordic nRF52840 dongle

Best all-around starting point. The nRF52840 is Nordic Semiconductor's BLE chip, and their inexpensive USB dongle plus the free nRF Sniffer for Bluetooth LE firmware is the de facto standard for hobbyist and professional BLE capture alike.

  • Captures: BLE advertisements and connection packets, following the channel hopping.
  • BLE versions: Supports modern BLE including the 2 Mbps PHY and long-range coded PHY (Bluetooth 5.x features), depending on firmware version.
  • Software: Feeds directly into Wireshark, which decodes the link layer, L2CAP, ATT/GATT, and more.
  • Cost: Roughly the price of a nice lunch. Hard to beat for the capability.
  • Catch: It sniffs one connection at a time and must lock onto the connection from its start.

If you're going to buy one thing, buy this.

Ubertooth One

The open-source veteran. The Ubertooth One from Great Scott Gadgets is an open-source 2.4 GHz wireless development platform that predates cheap BLE dongles and remains popular for research.

  • Captures: BLE advertisements and connection following; also useful for broader 2.4 GHz experimentation.
  • BLE versions: Strong with the original 1 Mbps BLE; less suited to the newer high-speed and coded PHYs than the nRF52840.
  • Software: Its own toolchain plus Wireshark integration.
  • Cost: Several times the nRF52840 dongle.
  • Why pick it: Fully open hardware and firmware, and flexibility beyond just BLE. For pure BLE-5 capture, the nRF dongle is usually the more practical buy today.

Flipper Zero

Convenient, but not a full sniffer. The Flipper Zero is a popular multi-tool with a BLE radio. Out of the box it can scan for and interact with some BLE devices, and community firmware extends what it can do.

  • Captures: BLE advertisement scanning and various interactions.
  • Not designed for: Full connection packet capture and channel-following the way an nRF52840 or Ubertooth is. Treat it as a scanning and experimentation tool, not a protocol analyzer.
  • Cost: More than a dedicated dongle, but it does many unrelated things.
  • Why pick it: You already have one, or you want a pocket multi-tool. For serious packet capture, pair it with — or skip it for — a proper sniffer.

Flipper Zero is a trademark of Flipper Devices Inc.; we're independent and not affiliated with them.

Your phone (advertisement scanning)

Free, and enough for most tasks. Before spending anything, remember that your phone captures the advertisement layer without extra hardware. That covers device identification, proximity, and auditing what's broadcasting.

BLE Sniffer for Android scans nearby Bluetooth Low Energy devices, captures their advertisement data (name, address, RSSI, manufacturer, service UUIDs), logs sessions on-device, exports to CSV, and shows an RSSI proximity radar. No ads, no telemetry, no accounts — your data stays on the phone. It's the right tool for the scanning half of the job, and it costs nothing to try.

Which should you buy?

  • Just want to see and identify nearby devices, or gauge distance? No purchase needed — use a phone. Get BLE Sniffer for Android.
  • Need to capture connection traffic and you're starting out? nRF52840 dongle + nRF Sniffer + Wireshark.
  • Want open hardware or broader 2.4 GHz work? Ubertooth One.
  • Already own a Flipper Zero? Use it for scanning; add an nRF dongle when you need real capture.

A note on authorization

Capturing the traffic of devices you don't own can carry legal risk depending on where you are and what you do with it. Stick to devices you own or are explicitly authorized to test. This is general information, not legal advice.

Whatever hardware captures the packets, you still need software to make sense of them — that's the job of a Bluetooth protocol analyzer.