Network Analyzer#

Simplicity Studio® 5 (SSv5)'s Network Analyzer enables debugging of complex wireless systems. This tool captures a trace of wireless network activity that can be examined in detail live or at a later time.

More than simply a packet sniffer, the Network Analyzer works with the data sniffer interface on the Silicon Labs wireless chips to provide direct feedback from the baseband radio of each device, allowing any supported radio to report detailed packet transmission and reception data, such as timestamps, link quality (or LQI), receive sensitivity (or RSSI), and CRC pass/fail results, all without any software overhead.

With SSv5, any PTI-enabled Silicon Labs platform can record the radio activity regardless of the application firmware that is being used, so there’s no need to have a dedicated sniffer device installed to catch the traffic. The Network Analyzer also enables capture from multiple sources simultaneously into the same log file without falsely duplicating packets. This enables the developer to compare how well different radios in the network heard the same transmission.

In cases when detail is not desired, Network Analyzer makes it easier to understand the workings of a complex wireless protocol. Related packet events are automatically grouped into a Transactions pane within the capture view, allowing for quicker parsing of what’s happening during that portion of the traffic log. Quickly access statistics like total duration, number of related packets, number of point-to-point and end-to-end retries, and unexpected conditions like requests with missing responses or deliveries where expected acknowledgments are missing.

See QSG106: Getting Started with EmberZNet PRO for additional information about using Network Analyzer with Zigbee applications.