So is this project dead already?

Parsed hex packets being sent during the firmware update: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9noT-h9uevldl9FcFU4RnFUZjA/view?usp=sharing

Already stripped out the usb header info, so just the hex data is there.  Each packet starts with 92 32, so that may be some sort of pointer, and there are several packets with nothing but FF or 00 bytes.  Also, near the end there is a section that says VALVE WEAK and TESTdozewipe.  Not sure what those mean, but I'm running a disassembler on it to see if i can pick out any actual firmware activity

Finally captured the firmware update.  It's in wireshark format.  https://drive.google.com/a/projectmakeit.com/file/d/0B9noT-h9uevlaHRwUUVBVXVvV00/view?usp=sharing

Dongle internals: http://imgur.com/a/0J4iL

I made my account only to thank you for tearing the dongle apart and upload these awesome photos, really, thank you guy!

Just got my controllers in, starting a teardown this evening.

http://blog.includesecurity.com/2015/11/NordicSemi-ARM-SoC-Firmware-dumping-technique.html might be of interest :)

@egoodchild considering they are making it "open and hackable", I doubt they have any flash security. I get both of mine on Friday, so I'll pull the flash then to be sure.

The ploy they are using with the SWD port is not uncommon. Neither is the coupling of a BLE radio of NXP parts.

Pin-out would fallow for both parts:

1.VCC

2.SWDIO

3.nRESET

4.SWCLK

5.GND

6.SWO (only needed for trace debugging)

They likely used the same IDE to develop firmware for both parts.  It will be interesting to see if Valve locked the flash security in either part.