Blue Scan vs BLE Sniffer

Blue Scan – A Powerful Bluetooth Low Energy Scanner Blue Scan is a fast, practical tool for discovering and monitoring nearby Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices. Whether you're a developer, hobbyist, or simply curious about the wireless devices around you, Blue Scan gives you a clear view of the BLE environment in real time. The app continuously scans for nearby BLE devices and presents them in an easy-to-read list. Each device shows important details such as signal strength (RSSI), estimated distance, and connection status. Devices update dynamically as signals change, so you can quickly see what’s nearby and how close it is. Blue Scan also includes a visual radar view that places devices around you based on signal strength, making it easy to identify which devices are closest and which are farther away. The radar interface provides a quick, intuitive way to understand the BLE landscape around you. To keep the display useful and uncluttered, Blue Scan includes several filtering options. You can hide iBeacons, filter out inactive devices, or remove unknown devices with no name. This helps you focus on the devices that matter most. Devices can also be sorted in multiple ways, including by signal strength or estimated distance, making it easy to track down a specific device or identify the strongest signals in your area. The interface is designed to be simple and efficient, showing key information at a glance without unnecessary complexity. The layout adapts naturally to light and dark mode and works well on both iPhone and iPad. Blue Scan is useful for: • Developers working with BLE peripherals • Troubleshooting Bluetooth connectivity • Finding lost or nearby devices • Exploring the wireless environment around you Whether you’re testing hardware, tracking signal strength, or just curious about what Bluetooth devices are nearby, Blue Scan gives you the tools to see what’s happening in the air around you.

BLE Sniffer turns your iPhone into a passive Bluetooth Low Energy scanner. See the BLE devices broadcasting around you, log what they're advertising, and use a proximity radar to gauge how close they are — all without connecting to anything. Think of it as a "sniff raw" mode for the Bluetooth Low Energy spectrum: capture the advertisements in the air, filter nothing, analyze offline. Whether you're mapping the BLE devices in your own home, auditing your gear, or reverse-engineering your own hardware, BLE Sniffer shows you what's broadcasting nearby. WHAT IT DOES Live device scanning See a real-time list of the nearby BLE devices that are advertising — name, identifier, signal strength (RSSI), manufacturer, service UUIDs, advertisement count, and first/last-seen times. Sort by signal, activity, name, or recency. Device categorization (heuristic) A built-in lookup of the complete Bluetooth SIG manufacturer registry — 4,000+ vendor IDs — plus vendor and name heuristics attaches a visual badge to some devices to help you triage a long list — for example dev boards, smart-home gear, and devices whose manufacturer ID or advertised name matches known camera vendors. These are best-effort guesses based on what a device broadcasts, not confirmed identifications. Proximity radar & "Geiger" mode A radar view plots advertising devices on concentric rings by signal strength. Pick one device and switch to single-device mode: a big live RSSI readout with color-coded background plus audio and haptic feedback that speeds up as the signal gets stronger — walk around and home in on it like a metal detector. Sessions & baseline diffing Save a scan as a named session. Capture a baseline in one location, scan another, and diff the two — see which advertising devices appear in the new scan but not the baseline. A quick way to narrow a long list down to what changed. Full CSV export Export any session or live scan as CSV — one row per advertisement, with timestamps, identifiers, RSSI, manufacturer IDs, service UUIDs, TX power, and raw advertisement bytes. Share it anywhere via the system share sheet for offline analysis. Optional device inspection For devices you own, opt in to connect and browse the GATT service tree — read manufacturer, model, and firmware info and explore characteristics. Connections are always explicit and per-device; the app never auto-connects. PRIVACY-FIRST BY DESIGN • Passive by default — it listens, it doesn't transmit or pair • No ads, no in-app purchases, no subscriptions • No telemetry, no accounts, no cloud — your data stays on your device • Everything is logged locally and exported only when you choose GREAT FOR • Mapping and auditing the BLE devices broadcasting in your own home or office • Hardware hackers, makers, and security researchers • Anyone curious about the invisible radio traffic around them PERMISSIONS BLE Sniffer asks only for Bluetooth access, which it uses to listen for nearby device advertisements. It does not pair, transmit, or request your location. Each device appears under an app-scoped identifier assigned by iOS — no hardware addresses are exposed. NOTE BLE Sniffer is a passive observation tool for the Bluetooth Low Energy spectrum. It detects Bluetooth Low Energy advertisements only — it is not a hidden-camera or surveillance detector and cannot find devices that don't broadcast BLE (including many cameras, and anything using Bluetooth Classic, Wi-Fi, or cellular). RSSI indicates rough proximity (distance), not direction, and device categories are heuristic guesses, not guarantees. Please use it responsibly and legally.