Every Home Assistant Install Should Use This

[@digitaldistro]

Thanks for this, You gave my an awesome idea to be able to include my govee outdoor lights that are bluetooth only ESP and HA for the win!. Thanks again!

[@KeyBored101]

Great info, I need to work on my home automations

[@eberger02]

My wifi can fail occasionally but my Zigbee network is rock solid. What does BT add to a solid Zigbee network? I am guessing data rate so you can stream video and music? Pretty sure some of the newer ESP32 can do Bluetooth Mesh as I’ve seen it specified. Can home assistant also do Bluetooth Mesh and if so could these devices take part in a mesh instead of each broadcasting individually? Also can ESP home do Zigbee to Bluetooth Proxies?

[@_bentou]

you showed airpods at the beginning of the video. in the case of a bluetooth proxy, will they be able to work as the sound output of the PC/RPI/whatlese which runs homeassistant or extend the bluetooth range of the smartphone to which these headphones are usually connected???

[@lets-automate]

To be honest, at that point, I was just demonstrating how many things use Bluetooth these days. It's a shame that the Bluetooth Proxies can't act as an extender for any devices. It can only do it for specific products. It would be great if they could do that. I actually wish Home Assistant had an easy list of Bluetooth devices supported. (I haven't found one at least)

[@_bentou]

@@lets-automate I tested inkbird thermometers in my fridge and freezer, and ATC MIThermometers flashed with the btHome firmware. all works fine with esphome bluetooth proxy. but I never tested sound devices.

[@LeiChat]

Thanks for the tutorial. Any recommendations for 3D printing the enclosure for the EST-PoE-32? Tried a few links from Google and Xometry seem to be cheap compared to the others. £12.17 for the two pieces in white ABS.

[@lets-automate]

I haven't looked myself but it would be great if there is a good one. 3D printing has slipped down my list a bit to be honest. Need to spend more time on it!

[@markmulder996]

All shelly smart devices that run on an ESP32 chip can also be used as a bluetooth proxy. So it's a win-win of having a super easy to use shelly device like a smart plug or switch, and it immediatly doubles as a BT repeater for home assistant.

[@lets-automate]

Yeah, I love Shelly devices. I do also like having wired devices too though where possible. 😁

[@markmulder996]

@@lets-automate You mean wired power, or wired network? When it comes to power then i most certainly agree, i would never run anything off batteries unless absolutely necessary. When it comes to network then i have to say 98% of my smart home stuff uses wifi, and it's been solid as a rock for about 5 years now..

[@LeiChat]

I have two Shelly Plus 1 devices installed in my garage. I also have a few Shelly Blu Door/Window sensors. I tried enabling the Bluetooth proxy on just one of the Plus 1 in the hope it would improve the connectivity of the door/window sensors. Does the Bluetooth proxying only work with HA if you replace the Shelly firmware with a custom ESPHome firmware?

[@LeiChat]

In HA I configured the Shelly device with 'Passive' mode. In the Shelly configuration (web admin) I enabled the Bluetooth and Bluetooth gateway settings.

[@netroy]

Good content. But please don't use clickbait titles. Just mention in the title that this video is about Bluetooth proxies 🙏🏼

[@lets-automate]

Thanks for the comment! It's difficult with the titles. I make sure I tell the truth and most titles are as you suggest; if I think enough people already care and know about that piece of functionality. I do believe it's a thing most HA installs should have. The reality is that if I had just put something like "Home Assistant Bluetooth Proxies" it probably wouldn't have got as many views and so wouldn't haven't been shown to as many people who would probably be interested in it. And if I can't keep up the views then sadly I can't afford to make the videos. I really appreciate your comment and support.

[@LeiChat]

I have a HA Yellow PoE with Pi4 with the onboard Bluetooth enabled (WiFi disabled). Is it necessary to disable the onboard Bluetooth when adding ESP32 Bluetooth proxies to the network or is Home Assistant happy to allow devices to connect to both?

[@lets-automate]

I believe that they work together and the onboard one can just act as another Bluetooth proxy. I haven't personally tried this though because I run my Home Assistant on a VM so don't use a local Bluetooth dongle, just BLE Proxies.

[@dominikrak72]

Thanks

[@yikliu7426]

Hi,I have two ESP32s, I look at the logs, it only scans once every five minutes, is there a way to shorten the scanning time?

[@lets-automate]

Hi. Yes, you can change that. If you add the "duration" parameter within the scan_parameters then you can define how long you want a full scan to take. Without this parameter it is actually scanning all of the time, defined by window and interval, and will for example pick up iBeacons quite quickly, it just doesn't update "off" states until a full scan has not "seen" a tracker. For normal Bluetooth proxy stuff I'm not sure the duration matters much. Hope this helps!

[@yikliu7426]

@@lets-automate Thank you,mate!I use the Private BLE Device plugin to get the room location of my phone. At first, I felt that its status update was very slow, and after I tested it, I found that I needed to turn on my phone in the designated room, and he would update it in real time...

[@WeiserMaster3]

This video explained a lot but not what the impression suggested it would, very confusing

[@lets-automate]

Thanks for the comment! What were your expectations of the video? So that I can consider for future videos.

[@CrazyAngelfire]

anyone have this trouble? ERROR Connecting to 192.168.1.20:3232 failed: [Errno 113] No route to host??

[@claudebrun6458]

Hello I not have device for powering this device by poe.... Could you indicate a device for powering poe ? Thanks

[@lets-automate]

Hi there, sorry for late reply! Do mean that you don't have a PoE switch to power the ESP device via PoE? If so, they you could just use the USB-C port instead of the DC terminals with an old power supply that you might have lying around. If you really want to power it with PoE so that you only have one cable then you can buy a PoE injector which conforms to the 802.3af or 802.3at standard.

[@CarlosVasquez-l2q]

so i just got the ESP32 board and i've connected it via micro usb to my laptop and went through the process of installing it, but installation seems to be stuck. how long should it be "installing" and "preparing installation" for? its been like 20 minutes.

[@lets-automate]

Yeah that seems like it's stuck! It should only take a couple of minutes. Did you use my yaml file as a base or create your own? Which ESP32 device do you have? I'm trying to think why it's stuck. Normally just fails if there is an issue.

[@billgann2257]

YOU NEED TO DOWN LOAD DRIVERS TO MAKE IT INSTALL I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM

[@CarlosVasquez-l2q]

@@lets-automate there was something wrong with my USB port on my Microsoft surface laptop. I don't know what it is but it's supposedly not registered as a serial port or something to that effect. You basically only gives power to things that are plugged in. I tried different data cables and it still didn't work. But I finally was able to use my y's laptop and got it working perfectly fine. All is good over here and now I have my switchbot devices connected to my home assistant. Not sure what is wrong with my USB port. But whatever

[@CarlosVasquez-l2q]

@@billgann2257 when I was having the problem, I did download the drivers which didn't fix it. And I made sure that the cable was used to transfer data. And when I got my wife's laptop I was able to do it just fine. So the problem is definitely the USB port in my Microsoft surface pro 7

[@lets-automate]

Great to hear you got it working! I have found the integration to be really reliable. Been using with my SwitchBot lock and it actually opens quicker through HA than using the keypad sometimes.

[@PersonXes]

All my esp32's are on wifi. Does the fact they can't do wifi and BT at the same time lean they might miss some incoming WiFi/BT messages?

[@lets-automate]

They are pretty good at managing both tbh. But if you have congested wifi then it can take longer to communicate and therefore delays Bluetooth comms, which can cause stability issues. The difference between the "interval" and "window" scan parameters effectively determine how much time you give for WiFi. The time it can be noticeable is if you are trying to detect iBeacons which don't transmit multiple times per second, then you may miss a few transmissions. I personally have mainly WiFi ESPs and 1 wired one in the centre of the house so that if WiFi goes a bit odd (or maintenance) then you still have the wired one working okay.

[@PersonXes]

@@lets-automate OK thanks! My unifi access points should be able to handle the traffic I have here and also no issue with interference from neighbours. I don't use ibeacons for the moment (I think I'm naively waiting for ESPHome to have embedded the same functionality as ESPresence), rather things like curtain rails, toothbrushes and weight scales. My house is rather large, so I have my doubts whether a central wired ESP32 would be able to provide bluetooth coverage troughout the house (still better than nothing of course). I might consider the new every presence pro devices when they come out.

[@christianscandi]

can i use the EST-PoE-32 to connect for example the Switchbot bot to Homeassistant and controll it? Becase that device only communicate via BT and would normally require the Switchbot Hub but i don't want more "hubs". Running HA as an VM on a server now.

[@lets-automate]

Yes, the SwitchBot Bluetooth integration will allow you to connect the Bot to Home Assistant via a Bluetooth Proxy, without the need for a SwitchBot Hub. I do have a SwitchBot Hub, but the devices all connect directly to this integration instead of the hub, so it's not massively used...and I agree the less hubs the better!

[@christianscandi]

@@lets-automate Superb, thank you for the reply.

[@LeiChat]

@@lets-automate I have the Switchbot hub connected to a guest WiFi network that's isolated from LAN, just for the benefit of syncing data from temp/humidity, etc. to the Switchbot cloud as a backup. I use the Switchbot app for updating the device (Curtain, Blind Tilt) firmware too. I've not seen HA notify me of new firmware, perhaps that's not part of the HA Switchbot Bluetooth integration?

[@lets-automate]

Hi! I believe that you will still need to do firmware updates from the SwitchBot app sadly. The Matter platform is a bit annoying because it doesn't seem to work across VLANs, so you will need to continue using the Bluetooth or cloud methods.

[@claudebrun6458]

Hello Does anyone has a link for a good case for this est ??

[@lets-automate]

I've not seen one tbh. My 3D printing skills are fairly basic so I just used a project box to save time. I'm sure that it will be on EST's list to start selling cases for their products at some point. Also this is a pretty big dev board so if you want to connect lots of sensors then it's handy. Otherwise, there are some smaller PoE ESP32 boards out there. (I haven't tried any though)

[@Dexter101x]

Can this be controlled by a raspberry pi?

[@lets-automate]

For the Bluetooth Proxy functionality it needs to be an ESP32. Raspberry Pi Pico can run ESPHome though.

[@willscottytv]

Yeah, but what can they do for you? You seem to have missed that crucial point.

[@lets-automate]

Thanks for the comment! What do you mean by "what can they do for you?"? In my system I mainly use them for my BLE SwitchBot Lock, SwitchBot curtains and Xiaomi temperature sensor.

[@TheRonskiman]

Clearly they allow Bluetooth devices to connect, and using ethernet makes it more reliable. As per the video Bluetooth has a range of about 10 meters, may be less in a building, so a device may be out of range, so you place one of these near that device it will be able to connect back to HA reliably.

[@SkillFullSheep]

They extend bluetooth range. Think of them as bluetooth repeaters...

[@willscottytv]

o7 ah, someone who already knows tells someone else that it's obvious, "stoopid". "it makes your wireless connections more reliable". So a Bluetooth repeater then? For what kind of device? Having watched many home assistant related videos now I thought most devices were wifi or zigbee or matter. I've not come across any yet that talk about Bluetooth sensors. So sincere apologies for asking what to you is clearly a stupid question, because you know the answer. Knob.

[@kloakovalimonada]

Or get rid of BT altogether. Its not good for home automation.

[@lets-automate]

I broadly agree with you. I wish that companies wouldn't use BT for smart home product communication. I think it still has its place with iBeacons though. Bluetooth 6 with channel sounding might be an interesting one in the future as an alternative to UWB for some applications.

[@Tom_Neverwinter]

I find esphome the most annoying item of all. its reliant on config annoyances. standalone devices are superior

[@lets-automate]

Thanks for your input. Yeah, it is always a trade-off. The thing I like about it is that even if you don't want to create things yourself with it, it's allowing creators/developers to make pre-configured products using ESPHome as a foundation rather than coding something from scratch. I imagine a lot of people who use to code Arduino sketches for little sensors don't bother anymore, they just write some YAML instead, which is certainly easier than learning C.