TLDR : http://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag/index.html
MindrustUK and I have been playing around with Osram’s Lightify Pro gateway over the last few months, and focus turned to ZigBee sniffers and packet capture.
Historically I’ve used the TI cc2531EMK, but its a real PITA and requires a reasonable amount of configuration to get it up and running with Wireshark; other option is to use Ubilox Ubiqua but as great as that software is, and I do love it, cost wise its prohibitive for the home user.
TI do their own packet sniffer software (http://www.ti.com/tool/PACKET-SNIFFER) but its not the most user friendly of UI’s and lacks a lot of functionality. But as I was struggling for a solution I decided to take another look at it. This is where I discovered TI had released a v2 that provided Wireshark compatibility!
Unfortunately, after a couple of hours trying, I read the release notes to find that my cc2531 wasn’t actually supported in v2, but it did lead me to take a look at the cc2650 Launchpad (http://www.ti.com/tool/LAUNCHXL-CC2650) , one the platforms they do support.
As it was not too expensive, £30 from Farnells with next day delivery, ordered this and I have to say as a packet sniffer it works great! The TI software pipes directly into Wireshark, and the experience is pretty seamless, once you have the trust centre keys defined at least. Worked well enough that I’ve now managed to pair my Digi XBee to my Philips Hue network, something I’ve been trying to do for a good 12 months.
The cc2650 and Wireshark allows me to monitor network traffic, packet sniff, and the Digi XBee s2c, with their XCTU software, allows me to map my Zigbee network and also issue my own custom network commands.
The cc2650 launchpad is interesting though, as the cc2650 is a multi standard solution. Out the box it is setup for bluetooth low energy, but it also supports 6LoWPAN and ZigBee once the board is flashed with the desired firmware; in my case the Zigbee packet sniffing firmware.
But it also lead me to the TI SensorTag (http://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag/index.html). This has a few options, one based on the cc2650 multi standard chip, but also a sub 1Ghz option and a WiFi option.
They all have a similar format which basically seem to provide a battery operated wireless sensor platform that has built in temperature, humidity, altimeter/pressure, ambient light, digital microphone, magnet, 9 axis motion (accelerometer, gyroscope, compass) as sensors, and a buzzer.
Together with the Debug Devpak (http://www.ti.com/tool/cc-devpack-debug) these SensorTags seem to be highly configurable with the option of developing custom firmware solutions using TI’s software.
I’ve not gotten a SensorTag yet, but I am sorely tempted to see what can be done with it.
However, MindrustUK thought it worth posting on the forum to highlight them to the community as others out there may be interested in taking a look.
Apologies if this is old news but quick search didn’t show anything on these already. However, the potential these small gizmos seem to offer in terms of home automation would seem to make it worthwhile drawing peoples attention to, if for no other reason as to see what you all can do with them!
If I end up getting one, will feed back how it goes, otherwise looking forward to hearing what others achieve with them.
Andy