ESP32 Bus Pirate 0.5 – A hardware hacking tool that speaks every protocol

ESP32 Bus Pirate is an open-source firmware that turns your device into a multi-protocol hacker's tool, inspired by the legendary Bus Pirate.

It supports sniffing, sending, scripting, and interacting with various digital protocols (I2C, UART, 1-Wire, SPI, etc.) via a serial terminal or web-based CLI.

Modes for:

- HiZ (default) - I2C (scan, glitch, slave mode, dump) - SPI (flash, sdcard, slave mode) - UART / Half-Duplex UART (bridge, read, write) - 1-WIRE (ibutton, temp sensor) - 2WIRE (smartcard) / 3WIRE (eeprom) - DIO (Digital I/O, read, pullup, set) - Infrared (device-b-gone, send and receive) - USB (HID, mouse, keyboard, gamepad, storage) - Bluetooth (BLE HID, scan, spoofing, sniffing) - Wi-Fi (scan, AP, connect, sniff, deauth) - JTAG (scan pinout, SWD) - LED control (animations, set LEDs) - I2S - CAN

https://github.com/geo-tp/ESP32-Bus-Pirate

github.com

・

164 points

・

geo-tp

・

22 days ago

33 comments

myself248 ・ 22 days ago

Is it a derivative of the original Bus Pirate in some way, or just reusing the name?

  • geo-tp ・ 22 days ago

    Both in a way. Bus Pirate, both the hardware and the software, is completely open source. It's not the same version, things are different, but it's largely inspired by it.

    However, the entire implementation is new, it's not a copy

    • Brian_K_White ・ 22 days ago

      Then you should not use their name.

      • schoen ・ 22 days ago

        Maybe it could be called "Bus-caneer"?

      • geo-tp ・ 22 days ago
        ・ 5 more

        See here: https://github.com/geo-tp/ESP32-Bus-Pirate/issues/7

        • Brian_K_White ・ 22 days ago
          ・ 4 more

          Nothing there adresses the problem. No one should have to tell you why it's wrong to use someone elses (reconized earned) name, or how "prefixed by esp32" does not change anything. Do what you want but don't delude yourself that you're in the right.

          • flowerthoughts ・ 21 days ago
            ・ 2 more

            Plus this assumes the reader knows the actual Bus Pirate doesn't use ESP32.

            • Brian_K_White ・ 21 days ago

              Not to mention, what if the original bus pirate developers wanted to support esp32? It's just wrong all around.

              Tomorrow I'm going to make one based on pi pico, and I want to sell them. But I have 2 problems:

              1 I suck at embedded code and electronics design so my product barely works. It isn't reliable, accurate, or safe for the device under test.

              2 there are already a ton of cheap mcu logic analyser projects and products...

              How can I get mine to be popular instantly despite those problems? I'll just use someone else's popular recognized and well-regarded name that they earned the hard way. I'll call it the "Flipper Bus Pirate". This is totally ok because "Flipper Bus Pirate" is not "Bus Pirate" and it's also not "Flipper Zero". I don't understand why you are yelling at me.

          • 47282847 ・ 21 days ago

            I generally agree, and also do in this particular case, but one could argue that bus pirate is so successful that it turned into a genericide (Kleenex, Hoover, Thermos, Zipper, …).

petre ・ 21 days ago

Too bad ir doesn't do CAN-bus, either using ESP32's integrated TWAI controller and a hardware interface with a transciever or a MCP2515 controller. The M5 has a CAN-bus transciever¹. Thay way it would be really useful on cars and more recent e-bikes.

1. https://docs.m5stack.com/en/unit/can

  • geo-tp ・ 21 days ago

    already supported

yjftsjthsd-h ・ 22 days ago

Hm, maybe this will finally let me network my IR-controlled AC units. There are a bunch of ESP/IR projects, but for some reason I haven't gotten them to work (pretty sure it's a problem with my hand-assembled hardware, in fairness)

  • jasongill ・ 22 days ago

    I recently converted all of my (5 in 3 buildings) mini splits on my property to be controlled by Home Assistant. It took some research but all I ultimately needed was:

    https://cloudfree.shop/product/ductless-hvac-wi-fi-module/

    this USB ESP32 module which works out of the box on Midea-produced units (Carrier, Electrolux, Pioneer). I have a few units that are other generic brands which apparently are rebranded "Aux" brand units, so I re-flashed the ESP32 board above to work with Aux units by doing `brew install esphome` and then `esphome run auxminisplit.yaml --device /dev/tty.usbserial-210` where auxminisplit.yaml is https://gist.github.com/jasongill/35a13e458b6d109ca2bbefeab4...

    That worked perfectly for me and should cover like 90% of all minisplits (Midea and Aux make a ton of brands units), let me know if that works for you.

  • baby_souffle ・ 22 days ago

    > (pretty sure it's a problem with my hand-assembled hardware, in fairness)

    Certainly could be the case. I've spent more time than I want to admit chasing down what was ultimately a loose wire.

    For what it's worth, you can get a cheap ESP32 module and basic IR sensor modules for a few bucks on amazon [0]. As long as you have a basic USB <-> TLL/Serial adapter, you should be able to install ESPHome on that. The module that's on that particular board does not have a ton of room so keep the ESPHome config simple and to the point.

    It's a few dozen lines of yaml total to get a basic IR signal decode/dump tool: [1]

    [0]: https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-Infrared-Transmitter-Receiver...

    [1]: https://esphome.io/guides/setting_up_rmt_devices#remote-sett...

    • yjftsjthsd-h ・ 22 days ago

      Thanks; $17 is much cheaper than the time it would take me to fix mine:) And limited space is fine, for my use case I just need to turn MQTT or HTTP POSTs into like three different signals.

  • geo-tp ・ 22 days ago

    The firmware supports about 83 IR protocols, but even with that, it's not mandatory that it works with all existing devices.

  • lostlogin ・ 22 days ago

    What is it about AC that makes it impossible to control?

    I live in New Zealand where we pretend that it’s never particularly cold or particularly hot. This might be a factor in how sloppy all the installs seem to be.

  • roger_ ・ 22 days ago

    ESPHome is good for that.

  • nullc ・ 22 days ago

    It can be informative to drop an oscilloscope probe on the transmitter.

    I recently found a remote that doesn't to the 30kHz modulation-- good luck to me controlling that with anything.

konraditurbe ・ 22 days ago

bought a t embed cc1101 and stickc2 plus boards to try out your project, arrives in a couple days!

  • geo-tp ・ 22 days ago

    That's nice, give me some feedback what you thought once you've used it

jnurmine ・ 22 days ago

No I3C though :)

  • geo-tp ・ 22 days ago

    Fork it and implement it then

    • 4gotunameagain ・ 22 days ago

      Sass Pirate 0.5

      • geo-tp ・ 22 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        It might have been poorly worded, English is not my native language, but there was nothing mean in my message. To put it more clearly, I meant: fork it and make a pull request to help me implement it.

        • jnurmine ・ 21 days ago

          Don't worry, at least I didn't think it was mean or anything.

          The "joke" was that implementing bitbanged I3C on an ESP32 (!) sounds absurd. Like doing raytracing on C64. (Of course some crazy folks have done it though)