Comparison

BLE2MQTT vs Network Tools

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

Head to head
About

BLE2MQTT

Features
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Bluetooth Broadcast β†’ MQTT, Easily Build a Soft Gateway This app turns your iOS device into a powerful Bluetooth gateway and debugging tool. It automatically captures broadcast data from surrounding Bluetooth devices, parses it according to custom or known protocols, and publishes the data via MQTT to your server or cloud platform. Core Features Broadcast Capture – Scan and receive broadcast packets from all detectable Bluetooth devices (e.g., beacons, sensors, IoT devices). MQTT Forwarding – Publish raw or parsed data to any MQTT Broker (supports TLS authentication and username/password). Protocol Parsing – Built-in common Bluetooth broadcast protocols (HW80x Heart Rate Armband, ZY Series Wristbands etc.) for automatic parsing and structured output. Debugging Tool – View raw broadcast data in real time (Hex/ASCII), with filtering, packet capture, and log export – ideal for Bluetooth device development and debugging. Soft Gateway Mode – Run continuously in the background (with proper authorization) to forward captured data to the cloud – no additional hardware gateway required. Use Cases Collect and upload Bluetooth device data in smart homes or industrial IoT. Verify and debug broadcast protocols during Bluetooth device development. Quickly prototype and test the Bluetooth β†’ MQTT data link. Privacy & Permissions Bluetooth permission is needed for device scanning. Network permission is required for connecting to an MQTT Broker. No personally identifiable information is collected. All data is controlled by the user, stored and forwarded to the user’s own destination. Requirements iOS 13+ or iPadOS 13+ Device with Bluetooth 4.0+ You must configure your own MQTT Broker address and subscription rules Whether you are an IoT developer, a hobbyist, or a system integrator, this app allows you to achieve cloud connectivity for Bluetooth data at the lowest cost.

About

Network Tools

Features
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A network engineer's toolkit that runs entirely on your iPhone. Seventeen tools, no account, no server of ours, and nothing about you collected. THE TOOLS β€’ Ping β€” ICMP latency and packet loss, with a live chart β€’ Traceroute β€” the hop-by-hop path, each router named β€’ LAN scan β€” every device on your subnet, named and identified: routers, NAS boxes, printers, Macs, phones β€’ Port scan β€” TCP connect scan with banners and service names, from a handful of ports to all 65535 β€’ DNS β€” your own wire-format resolver: every record type at once, any public resolver you choose, DNS-over-HTTPS, reverse lookups, and a comparison mode that queries five resolvers and flags the one that disagrees β€’ HTTP check β€” status, redirect chain, the DNS/connect/TLS/TTFB split, security headers β€’ TLS β€” the full certificate chain, expiry, SANs, cipher suite, and whether the system trusts it β€’ WHOIS β€” the referral chain followed to the registrar that actually holds the record β€’ Wi-Fi β€” link quality graded against local thresholds, and a walking survey that compares rooms β€’ Speed test β€” download, upload, latency and jitter, against Cloudflare or a URL you name β€’ iperf3 β€” throughput against your own iperf3 server, up or down, multi-stream β€’ IP calculator β€” CIDR maths, masks, host ranges, binary, and subnet division including VLSM β€’ MAC lookup β€” 39,000 vendor prefixes, bundled and fully offline β€’ Wake on LAN β€” the magic packet, sent to every address that might reach a sleeping machine β€’ Network interfaces β€” addresses, subnets, flags and live throughput β€’ Telnet β€” a raw TCP terminal for switches, PDUs and console servers β€’ SSH β€” see below A REAL SSH CLIENT Not a wrapper. The protocol is implemented in Swift, and it does the things you actually need from a phone: β€’ Jump hosts β€” reach a machine behind one bastion or several, each hop with its own account, its own credential and its own host key to confirm β€’ Port forwarding β€” bind a local port to a service on the far side, then open it in a browser inside the app: a router's web interface, a database, a dashboard listening only on the server's loopback β€’ scp β€” send a file up or pull one down, straight to the Files app β€’ ssh-copy-id β€” put your public key in a server's authorized_keys without a second terminal β€’ Keys β€” generate ed25519 on the device, or import ed25519, ECDSA and RSA in OpenSSH or PEM form, protected or not. Private keys live in the Keychain and can be exported under a passphrase when you need them elsewhere β€’ Snippets β€” the commands you always type, one tap above the keyboard β€’ A proper terminal β€” a real VT/xterm emulator, so vim and htop work, with esc, ctrl, alt, arrows and F-keys on a row of their own

Screenshots

BLE2MQTT3 screens
Network Tools4 screens

Verdict

The call

BLE2MQTT and Network Tools are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters β€” price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them β€” neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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

CostPrice Β· In-app purchases Β· Ads Β· Monetization

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

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
BLE2MQTT versus Network Tools: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBLE2MQTTNetwork Tools
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyβ€”Every 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad β€” better
Requires iOS18.018.0
Further details β€” not scored
Size1 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerε»ΊεΏ  ε­™Pavel Khorenian

In-app purchases

None

BLE2MQTT

No in-app purchases

None

Network Tools

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is BLE2MQTT free?
BLE2MQTT is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Network Tools free?
Network Tools is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do BLE2MQTT or Network Tools have ads?
Neither BLE2MQTT nor Network Tools shows ads.

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