Mohammad Afaneh, Author at Novel Bits

Like a MAC address for LAN connected devices, Bluetooth devices also have an identity address associated with each device. Understanding how Bluetooth addresses work is crucial for every BLE developer, especially when device privacy is a concern. So, what is a Bluetooth Address? A Bluetooth address sometimes referred to as a Bluetooth MAC address, is…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers April courses: Intro to Beacon Development, Visual BLE iOS App DevelopmentCheck out the full courses library Bluetooth wristband could help make large-scale Covid-19 lockdowns unnecessary by targeting only those who may be infectedNordic Semiconductor today announces that Spanish engineering company, Accent Systems, has developed a ‘Covid-19 BLE wristband’…

In BLE, there are many events and operations that can be exchanged between a Peripheral and a Central. Understanding these events is imperative for any BLE developer, and there are two aspects to achieving this: Learn the concepts in theory. Learn by analyzing them using a Bluetooth analyzer (sniffer) captures. I believe these two methods…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers March courses: Intro to BLE development (iOS)Check out the full courses library The Market for Bluetooth 5.1 SoCs Heats Up as Goodix Enters the ArenaHow does the new transceiver hold up against forerunners from Nordic Semiconductor and Dialog Semiconductor? Back in 2017, AAC contributor Tim Youngblood debriefed us on the…

Today (March 23, 2020), Silicon Labs released the next generation of their Bluetooth SoCs: the EFR32BG22 chipset family. The chipset features an ARM Cortex-M33 which supports the latest version of Bluetooth: version 5.2 (including features from versions 5.1 and 5.0). More importantly, the chipset features the following enhancements: Significantly lower power consumption compared to the…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers March courses: Intro to BLE development (iOS)Check out the full courses library BlueZ 5.54 Linux Bluetooth Stack Released With Just-Works Repairing Policy, EATT SupportMarcel Holtmann of Intel’s open-source Linux team released BlueZ 5.54 this morning as the latest version of this widely-used user-space Linux Bluetooth stack. BlueZ 5.54 adds…

This tutorial represents a small portion of a complete course on BLE development for iOS in the Bluetooth Developer Academy. The course was developed in partnership with Anas Imtiaz, PhD. In this tutorial, we will look at developing iPhone/iPad apps that interface with a Bluetooth Low Energy peripheral to send/receive data. We will start by…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers March courses: Intro to BLE development (iOS)Check out the full courses library Packetcraft Announces World’s First Qualified Bluetooth Software Stack for LE AudioPacketcraft, Inc. today announced its host stack and link layer software have achieved Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) qualification to Bluetooth® Core Specification version 5.2. This is…

Introduction A couple of months ago at CES 2020 (January 2020), the Bluetooth SIG introduced the latest version of Bluetooth, version 5.2. This announcement was made alongside the announcement of the next generation of Bluetooth audio, named: LE Audio. The major change introduced in version 5.2 is a new feature called Isochronous Channels (ISOC). ISOC…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers March courses: Intro to BLE development (iOS)Check out the full courses library New Feather nRF52840 Sense development board launchesAdafruit has this week announced the availability of its new Feather nRF52840 Sense development board, which is now available to purchase priced at $28.95 offering a “smorgasbord of sensors” and is…

Introduction As a continuation of our series on Bluetooth beacons (part 1 here and part 2 here), today we cover Apple’s iBeacon standard in a bit more detail. iBeacon is especially useful for deploying location-awareness applications and monitoring user behavior within an area. It was introduced in iOS 7 and utilizes Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers February courses: Getting Started with BlueZ + BLE SecurityCheck out the full courses library Proof of Concept of Sweyntooth Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) vulnerabilities GitHub RepoThis PoC uses well maintained libraries such as Scapy and Colorama. The BLE packet crafting and dissection is done via customized Scapy protocol layers (bluetooth4LE and bluetooth.py). There’s…

About two weeks ago (February 11, 2020), a group of Singaporean researchers released a group of vulnerabilities discovered in quite a few BLE vendor SDKs. They named the group of vulnerabilities “SweynTooth“. Here’s their explanation: The insight behind the name SweynTooth arrives from Sweyn Forkbeard, the son of King Harald Bluetooth (after whom the Bluetooth…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers February courses: Getting Started with BlueZ + BLE SecurityCheck out the full courses library Bluetooth LE devices impacted by SweynTooth vulnerabilitiesA team of academics from Singapore has published this week a research paper detailing a collection of vulnerabilities named SweynTooth that impact devices running the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol.…

Overview of Bluetooth Beacons Part 2

Bluetooth beacons are alive and well due to the low cost and widespread usage in commercial spaces like retail stores and logistics. The technology itself has been around for a while but gained widespread awareness when Apple released its iBeacon protocol in 2013. Since then, adoption and uses have increased as businesses and developers come…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers This month: Getting Started with BlueZ + BLE SecurityJoin Today! Laird Connectivity Announces New Bluetooth 5.1 Module That Delivers Longer Range for Next Gen Industrial IoT EnablementLaird Connectivity, a global leader in wireless technology, has announced the new BL653 embedded Bluetooth 5.1 module series which enables industrial OEMs to…

For many of us, our first encounters with Bluetooth probably came in the form of wireless headsets and hands-free devices. However, a new breed of Bluetooth devices is emerging — they are lower in cost and they consume less power. From a non-technical and user perspective, the name Bluetooth appears to cover any form of…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers This month: Getting Started with BlueZ DevelopmentJoin Today! Google open-sources the tools needed to make 2FA security keysThe initiative, called OpenSK, uses Rust-based firmware to essentially turn Nordic chip dongles into a FIDO U2F and FIDO2-compliant security key. Google has also published a source code for users to 3D…

Introduction In the previous post, Implementing Over-the-Air Device Firmware Update for nRF52 – Part 2, we introduced the OTA DFU process on the nRF52. In this post, we’ll go over testing the process using one of the DFU examples included in the nRF5 SDK, the “BLE Secure DFU Bootloader” example.. The hardware requirements for running the BLE…

Bluetooth Developer Academy The one-stop resource for Bluetooth developers This month: CES 2020 + What’s new in Bluetooth 5.2Join Today! New Research Exposes Cybersecurity Risks for E-Scooters and RidersNew research finds e-scooters can be hacked. Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio have published the first review of the security and privacy risks posed by e-scooters and their related…