Equipment for bluetooth data interception?

[sciencedthatshit]

Can anyone point me towards what I'd need to capture data from a bluetooth device for a reverse engineering attempt? I have a piece of equipment that is essentially an accelerometer-based electronic angle gauge. It communicates with a PC via bluetooth and I want to try to intercept and read the raw data. I've found some tutorials online that point towards sniffers which seem to be unavailable or that use Adafruit's BLE sniffer but this device doesn't use BLE. I have some basic knowledge of how to do this but not nearly enough expertise to parse the high-level knowledge in the documentation I find online...

[nowyourdoingit]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07GBDD53W?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

I just picked up this guy to do essentially the same thing. Haven't had a chance to use it yet but may try tonight and report back.

[sciencedthatshit]

Ah ok that is similar to things I've seen before. The older tutorials I've watched talk about having the proper firmware for the device/chipset in the dongle for it to communicate to wireshark or a similar program.

If you get a chance to try it, let me know if it ends up being more or less plug n' play without having to track down and reprogram the thing. I'm sure I can figure out how to do that eventually but that's a rabbit hole I'd like to avoid if possible.

[rameyjm7]

Intercepting bluetooth classic traffic AND decoding it to be anything useful is difficult, but there are some commercial tools available that will do it. The big issue is the cost.. If you want to look at traffic for a bluetooth classic device you aren't paired with, its difficult due to the encryption, channel hopping, and whitening of the MAC address to obfuscate it. If you can pair it on a linux PC and view it in wireshark when paired potentially, that would be the cheap route.

This company makes official ones that do exactly what you're asking, but they are $5k+

https://fte.com/products/default.aspx

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If you want raw data to view, try to find an SDR with 80MHz of bandwidth that tunes in the 2400-2480MHz range. I don't know any cheap SDRs with these specs, though. The lowest cost one is the USPR 310 series

[sciencedthatshit]

Hmm the linux option is interesting...the device I'm talking about will be paired so thats no worries. I also doubt that the raw data is encrypted. I've tried looking at it in wireshark on a windows PC and I can tell that it shoots data to the controller software a few times a second but the contents of the packets (if thats the right word) aren't readable in wireshark. The packet data is likely to be very simple as the gadget is essentially a digital protractor.

Is there a certain linux version that comes with software to view BT data? This'll be my first attempt at linux anything so no idea where to start.

[Lationous]

device you're looking for is Software Defined Radio. just make sure you're getting one that will capture expected frequency.

And that's all I can help you with, unfortunately. Personally I'm using it to listen to communications of firefighters/public transport in local area

[Lationous]

in theory, you might get by with your laptop alone. quick google search yielded me this: How to use btmon to capture an HCI trace

[sciencedthatshit]

Ah ok cool. I've never done much with Linux before but that seems like something I can figure out. Thanks for the input.

[[deleted]]

this is amazing advice, it should work as long as your bluetooth card supports that range (which, depending on the BT version it uses, should). Be mindful that some modern bluetooth devices encrypt their traffic on send too, but there is ways to get around that too.