Network Analyzer#

Network Analyzer is a packet capture, decoder software, and visualization application and is part of Silicon Labs Simplicity Studio. Network Analyzer has support for Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth Mesh packet capture, and the latest version of Simplicity Studio also has decoders to decode the Bluetooth LE and mesh traffic. For more information, refer to Using Network Analyzer with Bluetooth Low Energy and Mesh.

The EFR32 SoCs have a dedicated Packet Trace Interface (PTI), which outputs all the radio traffic sent and received by a specific EFR32 device, and Network Analyzer can capture this traffic. On the EFR32, the PTI functionality can be enabled or disabled at the source-code level so it can be enabled during development and can then be disabled for production software.

Silicon Labs Wireless Starter Kits (WSTKs) support PTI packet capture either over USB, which is useful for capturing packets from a few WSTKs at a time, or over an Ethernet connection. The Ethernet connection also provides access to PTI, and this functionality enables building and debugging a network of WSTKs and large-scale testing environments for Bluetooth Mesh.

The easiest way to start a Network Analyzer session for a specific device is to switch to the Network Analyzer tab, right-click on the device, select Connect, and select Start capture.