Getting Started with Bluetooth Low Energy

Chapter 6. Debugging Tools

This chapter introduces useful several debugging and development tools for working with Bluetooth Low Energy. It includes hardware tools, such as wireless protocol analyzers or sniffers (which sniff traffic over the air, displaying the captured data in a UI to analyze later), and tools to interact directly with BLE peripherals during the debug process.

To keep things accessible to small startups or engineers and developers who are just getting started with BLE, this chapter focuses on inexpensive tools, rather than high-end products that can run thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

PCA10000 USB Dongle and the Master Control Panel

The PCA10000 is a USB dongle included in Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF51822-EK (Working with the nRF51822-EK), a low-cost evaluation kit for the nRF51822 system-on-chip (SoC). While this kit is designed for embedded hardware engineers who are designing their own BLE peripherals, it might be worth purchasing the kit even if you are only developing mobile applications, because it includes a number of extremely useful debug tools for a relatively modest price tag.

One of these tools is the Master Control Panel (MCP), a Windows-based utility that turns the PCA10000 USB dongle into something that can simulate a BLE central device. It features an easy-to-use interface that allows you to see any data available on BLE peripherals in range or send data back to any peripheral you are connected to. This is particularly useful on Windows ...