Fieldwatch is a receive-only Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE observer application for Android that passively monitors nearby wireless devices and access points.
The tool addresses the need to understand what wireless devices and networks are present in a given environment without requiring external hardware, internet connectivity, or backend infrastructure. It works by listening to Wi-Fi beacons and Bluetooth LE advertisements that the phone naturally receives, then organizing and displaying this information locally on the device. The approach emphasizes offline operation and local data storage, making it suitable for field work where connectivity may be unavailable.
Fieldwatch is designed for users who want to audit their wireless environment, understand device proliferation around them, or investigate radio sources in their vicinity. The tool offers a modern interface with customizable views, a filtering engine to reduce information overload, an extensible signature library for identifying radio sources, and report generation capabilities. It requires no account creation, no backend server, and no special permissions beyond standard Android Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning. The application is distributed as a sideloadable APK with accompanying documentation rather than through app stores, and it operates entirely on the phone with no data transmission to external services.
The project is maintained as a personal hobby tool developed in spare time. The maintainer actively solicits bug reports and feature requests through the repository's issue tracker as the primary mechanism for improvement. Official builds are distributed exclusively through this repository, with the maintainer explicitly disclaiming responsibility for builds obtained elsewhere. The tool has undergone iterative refinement based on personal use over an extended period, and the maintainer has demonstrated responsiveness to naming conflicts by renaming the application from its original name while maintaining the same underlying functionality and codebase.
