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Search “ESP32 Marauder” enough times and the misspellings start piling up — Marauader, Maurader, Marauda. That tells us a lot of people typing it have never held one.
It’s not a single product, and we didn’t build it. It’s a piece of firmware, and we’ve flashed it onto enough of our own hardware to explain what it does.
What is an ESP32 Marauder?
It’s free, open-source firmware for the ESP32, the cheap wireless chip inside half the gadgets on your desk — written and given away by an independent developer, justcallmekoko.
You don’t buy it. You flash it onto a board, and that board turns into a pocket WiFi and Bluetooth testing tool.
So why does everyone call it a device? Because the firmware and the boards that run it share one name. We build one of those boards, the same way plenty of other makers do.
What can it actually do?
Once it’s flashed, Marauder covers three jobs. It scans and sniffs the WiFi networks around you.
It also runs deauthentication and beacon spam — the noisy stress tests a researcher runs on networks they’re allowed to touch. On Bluetooth it sends advertisement spam and sniffs traffic, trackers like AirTags included.
Everything it captures lands on a microSD card, ready to open in Wireshark later.
Is any of that useful outside a pentest? We think so — wardriving, learning how these protocols behave, or just seeing what’s broadcasting around you. Full command list on the ESP32 Marauder wiki.
Firmware or hardware — which one do you need?
Here’s where the confusion usually starts. “Marauder” names a firmware and, informally, any board that runs it.
We sell one of those boards: the Flipper Add-On: Marauder. It needs a Flipper Zero to work, and the firmware runs on plenty of other boards too.
Already carrying a Flipper? Then the add-on is the fastest way in — nothing extra to manage.
Either way, you don’t have to read raw serial output. We built Marauder UI Pro: wardriving maps, an Evil Portal workflow, and a path into Wireshark, all from the browser.
No laptop handy? The same dashboard runs as an Android app over USB. We tuned part of it for Pwnterrey 2026, our screen-free badge — and it works just as well with the add-on you’d buy from us.
No Flipper Zero? Meet Minino
If a Flipper isn’t already in your bag, we built Minino for the same kind of work, standalone. Its own screen, its own buttons, nothing else required.
Minino doesn’t run Marauder’s firmware; it runs ours. Function for function, it covers the same WiFi and Bluetooth ground, and adds Zigbee and Thread sniffing plus built-in GPS for wardriving.
Does that make it strictly better? No. Marauder’s own hardware still wins on long-range Bluetooth, and its ecosystem has toys like Fox Hunt direction-finding that we don’t have.
Can it spot the cameras watching you?
That part isn’t Marauder’s, it’s ours. We spent August building it and shipped it in the Minino firmware update on the first of September.
Walk a street with Minino and it listens for the chatter surveillance gear gives off. Plate-reading cameras of the Flock kind, body cams, card skimmers.
How does it tell a camera from a printer? Two clues. On WiFi it matches the maker’s fingerprint and the network names those cameras use; on Bluetooth it reads the little adverts they broadcast.
Then it scores what it heard, so one lucky match doesn’t cry wolf. When something keeps showing up, the score climbs and Minino flags it. The redesigned tracker screen adds a signal meter and your coordinates, so you can walk toward the thing instead of guessing.
Where would we use it? Before an audit, to see what’s already installed on the block. The Minino README has the rest.
Authorized use only
These are real WiFi and Bluetooth testing tools in something pocket-sized — use them only on networks and devices you own, or are explicitly authorized to test.
Deauth and beacon spam disrupt real connections, and detection can surface other people’s activity. Stay inside your local laws, with permission.
Firmware or standalone board, the goal is the same: know what’s happening around you before someone else does. Meow meow.