Comparison

BLE Sniffer vs Bhiu

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

BLE Sniffer

This app transforms your iPhone into a passive Bluetooth Low Energy scanner. It reveals nearby BLE devices, logs their advertisements, and offers a proximity radar to estimate distance, all without establishing a connection.

Highlights
  • Live BLE device scanning
  • Device categorization with vendor lookup
  • Proximity radar and Geiger mode
  • Session saving and baseline comparison
  • Full CSV export of scan data
  • Optional GATT service inspection
Features
Read full description

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.

About

Bhiu

Features
Read full description

Bhiu is a calm, independent app for your own OpenWrt router. See your network's pulse at a glance, then act on it — without opening a browser or remembering a single command. Bhiu talks only to the router address you enter, and to nothing else. There is no account, no analytics, and no Igney server in between. PULSE A live traffic wave and one plain sentence telling you how the network is doing. Download and upload as they happen, uptime, memory, WAN address, and the full routing table when you want the detail. DEVICES Everything on your network in one list, with names, addresses, signal strength and how long each has been connected. Tap any device for the full picture — and pause its internet access with one button when you need to. WI-FI Every radio and SSID your router exposes, with the clients on each. Turn a guest network off for the evening and back on in the morning. CONTROL Restart a service, wake a sleeping machine over the network, or reboot the router and watch it come back on its own. BUILT FOR THE JOB - Save more than one router and switch between them from Settings. - Connects over HTTP or HTTPS, with certificate pinning for routers using a self-signed certificate. - Degrades gracefully: router firmwares differ in what they expose, so a feature yours does not offer dims instead of breaking the app. - No third-party frameworks of any kind — Apple's system frameworks only. NO ROUTER HANDY? Tap "Try the demo" on the welcome screen and explore every feature against a fully simulated router: live traffic, the device list, pausing a device, Wi-Fi toggles, service restarts, Wake-on-LAN, and a complete reboot cycle. REQUIREMENTS An OpenWrt router with LuCI installed (ubus and rpcd reachable over HTTP or HTTPS) and its administrator password. Wake-on-LAN additionally needs the etherwake package on the router. Tested against OpenWrt 21.02 — other versions with LuCI installed are expected to work. Bhiu is an independent app and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the OpenWrt project.

Screenshots

BLE Sniffer4 screens
Bhiu4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: BLE Sniffer at 16.4 against Bhiu's 18.0. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

BLE Sniffer ships an update monthly, Bhiu every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
BLE Sniffer versus Bhiu: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBLE SnifferBhiu
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS16.4 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size39 MB4 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShibby Ventures LLCIgney ApS

In-app purchases

None

BLE Sniffer

No in-app purchases

None

Bhiu

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is BLE Sniffer free?
BLE Sniffer is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Bhiu free?
Bhiu is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do BLE Sniffer or Bhiu have ads?
Neither BLE Sniffer nor Bhiu shows ads.
Which is updated more often, BLE Sniffer or Bhiu?
BLE Sniffer ships an update monthly, and Bhiu every 3 weeks. Most recently, BLE Sniffer was updated on October 31, 2026 and Bhiu on October 31, 2026.

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