Sniffing is the process of capturing any information from the surrounding environment. In this process, addressing or any other information is ignored, and no interpretation is given to the received data.
Freescale provides both means and hardware to create devices capable of performing this kind of operation. For example, a KW01 board can be easily turned into a Sub-GHz sniffer using Test Tool 12.2.0 which can be found at
After downloading and installing Test Tool 12.2.0 there are several easy steps to create your own sniffer for Sub-GHz bands.
1) How to download the sniffer image file onto KW01.
a) Connect KW01 to PC using the mini-usb cable
b) Connect the J-Link to the PC
c) Open Test Tool 12.2 and go to the Firmware Loaders tab
d) Select Kinetis Firmware Loader. A new tab will pop-up.
e) J-Link will appear under the J-Link devices tab.
f) Select the KW01Z128_Sniffer.srec file and press the upload button.
g) From the Development Board Option menu select KW01Z128.
h) Follow the on-screen instruction and unplug the board. Then plug it back in.
i) Close the Kinetis Firmware Loader tab and open the Protocol Analyzer Tab
2) How to use the Protocol Analyzer feature. Basics.
a) The Protocol Analyzer should automatically detect the KW01 sniffer. If not, close the tab, unplug the board, plug it back and re-open the tab. If this doesn’t work, try restarting Test Tool.
b) To start “sniffing” the desired channel, click the arrow down button from Devices: KW01 (COMx) Off and select the desired mode and channel.
c) The tab will change to ON meaning that KW01 will "sniff" on the specified channel. To select another channel, click the tab again and it will switch back to Off. Then select a new channel.
d) Regarding other configurations, please note that you can specify what decoding will be applied to the received data.
Additional information:
- The sniffer image found in Test Tool is compiled for the 920-928MHz frequency band. Because of this, the present document will have attached to it two sniffer images, for the 863-870MHz and the 902-928MHz frequency bands.
- To upload a custom image perform the steps described at the beginning of this document, but instead of selecting a *.srec file from the list in Kinetis Firmware Loader click the Browse button and locate the file on disk. After selecting it, redo the steps for uploading an image file.
- A potential outcome: sometimes, if you load a different frequency band sniffer image, the Protocol Analyzer will display the previously used frequency band. To fix this, close Test Tool, re-open it and go to the Protocol Analyzer tab again. The new frequency band should be displayed.
More information on this topic can be found in Test Tool User Guide (..\Freescale\Test Tool 12\Documentation\TTUG.pdf), under Chapter 5 (Protocol Analyzer, page 87).
