how should the bluetoot_proxy work?

[evlo]

The problem

I don't understand how esphome bluetooth proxy_should work.

i have added

esp32_ble_tracker:
  scan_parameters:
    active: true
bluetooth_proxy:

to one of my existing esphome devices (climate)

I have tried removing it and adding it into home assistant, but no new entries in esphome integration, bluetooth integration says there are no unconfigured adapters.

Will the bluetooth proxy discovered devices with with homekit controller if they are actually homekit compatible?

Which version of ESPHome has the issue?

2022.8.3

What type of installation are you using?

Home Assistant Add-on

Which version of Home Assistant has the issue?

2022.9

What platform are you using?

ESP32

Board

nodemcu

Component causing the issue

bluettoth_proxy

Example YAML snippet

esp32_ble_tracker:
  scan_parameters:
    active: true
bluetooth_proxy:

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

no logs, nothing from bluetooth proxy in debug log, also compile is not complaining about bluetooth_proxy being invalid line etc.

[austwhite]

The bluetooth proxy will only discover Passive BLE devices currently.
What are you trying to discover? If they are locks or similar devices that need secure or active bluetooth connections, then currently bluetooth proxy will not detect these. If it is devices like Mi FLora, the bluetooth proxy will detect these, with the exception of battery that needs an active or paired bluetooth connection.

To answer your question properly, you need to specify what devices you want to connect to.

If I understand Homekit correctly, I believe it needs to pair, or have an active bluetooth connection. If my understanding is correct, then currently the Bluetooth Proxy will not work with those devices

[syphernl]

I'm seeing the same, nothing appears to be happening. I have many MiFloras which I expected to see in the logs at least but nothing is showing up.

Same for other devices such as my Switchbot Curtain, Mi Band or even my Nest smoke detectors. Opening a Bluetooth (LE) scanner on my phone shows quite a list, yet the bluetooth proxy seems to not detect any..

[austwhite]

You wont see it other than an ESPHome device in HA. The ESPHome logs do not show the connections. It just acts as it says, a bluetooth proxy. The devices connect to it like it was just a bluetooth adapter, with the exception of only being passive. If your devices are working, then it is working. That part threw me off a bit at first too as in older versions the BLE Tracking logged the events by default . I believe you could turn verbose logging on if you want to see it all in the logs, but by default these do not seem to be logged in my experience, but I have confirrmed it all works.

As a note, with Mi Flora, you will not get the battery via Bluetooth Proxy as it requires an active connection, the rest of the sensors will show up fine

[syphernl]

With verbose logging I indeed see a lot of traffic being proxied, a small excerpt:

[09:07:57][V][bluetooth_proxy:018]: Proxying packet from Flower care - XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:23. RSSI: -71 dB
[09:07:57][V][bluetooth_proxy:018]: Proxying packet from  - XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:2E. RSSI: -91 dB
[09:07:57][V][bluetooth_proxy:018]: Proxying packet from  - XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:2E. RSSI: -90 dB
[09:07:57][V][bluetooth_proxy:018]: Proxying packet from  - XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:74. RSSI: -61 dB
[09:07:57][V][bluetooth_proxy:018]: Proxying packet from  - XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:69. RSSI: -75 dB

Nothing ends up in HASS though. E.g. if I enable the "Xiaomi BLE" integration I would expect it to detect all of the Flower Care (MiFlora) devices yet it shows "No devices found on the network".

---

Got it to work! Works a lot better than the MiFlora integration since I don't have to pre-configure anything on the ESP's 🎉

[zigomatichub]

Hello, I'm testing also the BT proxy in esphome and I'm not able to have good result. Example: A LED BLE is discovered by the BT internal component into raspberry4 without the esphome proxy. It works good. I put a esp32 with ble32 and proxy enabled (with parameters given into the github generic esp32) into another room and put also the LED BLE near that place. I can't have the control of the Led as it still kept unavailable. If I remove bluetooth_proxy, I can see into the logs, LED BLE information coming. As soon as I put the proxy line into the yaml, I only see "Starting scan..." So till now, I'm not able to have the proxy running.

[austwhite]

@zigomatichub Please read the documentation for ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy. It very clearly states it is PASSIVE only. Your LED Lights require an ACTIVE connection to secure the connection via Bluetooth.

What you are seeing is expected behaviour. Things like Sensors that just send the data out for anything to see will work with ESPHome BT Proxy as that is passive. Anything that needs a secured or paired connection, like Lights, Locks, Switches, will NOT work with a passive BT Proxy. When ESPHome is able to do Active pairing, then your LED ligths will work. They will not work with passive proxy.

[zigomatichub]

@austwhite Thank you to explain me this.

I read the documentation and it says: "Home Assistant can expand it’s Bluetooth reach by communicating through the Bluetooth proxy component in ESPHome". Ok now I see that short notice in "Note section" that is passive only. I was thinking that if it's linked and controled via BT in raspi4 then I was expecting that it will be also the same on the esphome BT proxy. I have to do some research to understand what is a passive connection but from your answer, It means for example a BT temp sensor , I suppose that is a passive connection.

[zigomatichub]

I moved the esp32 in a room where there is a BT flower sensor and I get directly the information ! @austwhite Thank you for your fast answer. The proxy bt is working then perfectly as it should. I hope to see an extension of the active mode too haha :) [edited] https://github.com/esphome/esphome/pull/3817 :)