Bluetooth Tracker

This tracker discovers new devices on boot and tracks Bluetooth devices periodically based on interval_seconds value. It is not required to pair the devices with each other! Devices discovered are stored with ‘bt_’ as the prefix for device MAC addresses in known_devices.yaml.

Notes for Home Assistant Core Installations

This platform requires pybluez to be installed. On Debian based installs, run

sudo apt install bluetooth libbluetooth-dev

To use the Bluetooth tracker in your installation, add the following to your configuration.yamlThe configuration.yaml file is the main configuration file for Home Assistant. It lists the integrations to be loaded and their specific configurations. In some cases, the configuration needs to be edited manually directly in the configuration.yaml file. Most integrations can be configured in the UI. [Learn more] file. After changing the configuration.yamlThe configuration.yaml file is the main configuration file for Home Assistant. It lists the integrations to be loaded and their specific configurations. In some cases, the configuration needs to be edited manually directly in the configuration.yaml file. Most integrations can be configured in the UI. [Learn more] file, restart Home Assistant to apply the changes. The integration is now shown on the integrations page under Settings > Devices & services. Its entities are listed on the integration card itself and on the Entities tab.

# Example configuration.yaml entry
device_tracker:
  - platform: bluetooth_tracker

Configuration Variables

request_rssi boolean (Optional, default: false)

Performs a request for the “Received signal strength indication” (RSSI) of each tracked device.

device_id integer (Optional)

The ID of the Bluetooth adapter to be used by the tracker, e.g., use 0 for hci0, 1 for hci1, and so on.

Default:

-1 (The first available Bluetooth adapter)

In some cases it can be that your device is not discovered. In that case let your phone scan for Bluetooth devices while you restart Home Assistant. Just hit Scan on your phone all the time (or keep the Bluetooth device view open on an iOS device) until Home Assistant is fully restarted and the device should appear in known_devices.yaml.

The integration will try to create an entity using the device name that is detected. If such an entity already exists (for example because you are already using the Companion App for this device) no entity will be created and the log file will show an error that the The see action is not supported for this entity device_tracker.device (as it is not a device_tracker entity). You can rename the other conflicting entity, next time the device is detected a new entity with the same name will be created.

For additional configuration variables check the Device tracker page.

bluetooth_tracker.update action

The bluetooth_tracker.update action can be used to manually trigger a Bluetooth scan. An example of when this action can be useful is to trigger scans based on other events like doors being opened, beacons are in range or buttons are pressed.