Case study

Empatica E4 wristband: decoding BLE telemetry

Empatica E4 wristband work reconstructs the device's BLE telemetry flow and provides a local recorder and decoder for accelerometer, skin temperature, electrodermal activity, and raw photoplethysmogram data. It documents GATT services and packet layouts, preserves raw packets, and writes decoded sensor readings to CSV.

Targets: Protocol
Category: Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship: Independent reconstruction project
Sources reviewed: 2026-11-08
Evidence class: C2 code & docs, no demo or download

Stars: 6
Last commit: 2026-05-17
Language: Python
License (GitHub): MIT

GitHub data as of 2026-11-10

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Evidence

Observed: Code and documentation observed; no download method or demo found.
Checked: 2026-11-08

How evidence classes are assigned

Requirements & limits

Prerequisites: An owned Empatica E4 wristband and Bluetooth are required.
Prerequisites: Python 3.11 or newer is required; the launcher installs bleak and pyusb on first run.
Limits: The PPG packing is tentative, and its original packet bytes are preserved for later decoding.
License: MIT license.

Cite

BibTeX

@misc{empatica-e4-local-case,
  title = {{Empatica E4 wristband: decoding BLE telemetry}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/Vijtus/empatica-e4-local}},
  url = {https://github.com/Vijtus/empatica-e4-local},
  urldate = {2026-11-08},
  note = {Awesome REA entry: \url{https://awesomerea.org/resources/empatica-e4-local-case/}}
}

Plain text

Empatica E4 wristband: decoding BLE telemetry. https://github.com/Vijtus/empatica-e4-local (accessed 2026-11-08). Awesome REA entry: https://awesomerea.org/resources/empatica-e4-local-case/

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Primary sources

README.md GitHub · Vijtus/empatica-e4-local · Revision 1c7a2a0
help/03_how_we_decoded_the_wristband.md GitHub · Vijtus/empatica-e4-local · Revision 1c7a2a0