Active BT requires an updated version of EspHome that is not yet released. Hopefully very soon 
. Iām itching to test it out myself.
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The release notes
For this occasion, ESPHome will have an additional release, which adds this functionality.
Iām still a bit confused on the Active Bluetooth functionality. I have 3 esp home proxies that I flashed with the software via the steps from the previous release.
Today, both the esphome add on and the devices themselves had software updates.
Soooā¦do I have to do anything at this point? Iāve seen in videos where you have to put Active in the YAML vs reflashing them per this update vs waiting on an update on these comments.
Can I get instructions on updating proxies to work if you have them set up already?
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From the ESPHome docs:
Configuration:
bluetooth_proxy:
- active (Optional, boolean): Enables proxying active connections. Defaults to
false. Requires Home Assistant 2022.10 or later.
Assuming youāre on ESPHome 2022.9.3 and HASS 2022.10.0, add active: true to your bluetooth_proxy config and re-flash your device.
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Subviews - this feature is revolutionary!
IMHO many people now will start to rewrite their dashboards)).
Passing data to Google Sheets - for me the 2nd great feature.
Since I am still a beginner, not using many integrations so farā¦
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We need much more information on how Matter / Thread is going to work.
I donāt know if I NEED to get the SkyConnect because itās unclear how the fabrics etc work.
I have 2 Google Nest Gen 2 displays, which we know will be getting thread activated and matter enabled soon, so if matter enabled devices are added to Google Home - can they then be shared to the Home Assistant fabric without Home Assistant needing an actual radio?
I had hoped we were going to learn at least a bit about this when the release video said they were going to discuss matter at the end.
I doubt it. From what Iāve seen in the past, google or alexa only work inward.
Right but the whole point of multiadmin in matter, is that you can share devices to other ecosystems. Eg - you can add a device to Google Home, and then share it to Alexa, Apple, SmartThings etc - but in these cases, all these ecosystems have their own radio, so that is the part I donāt understand. It doesnāt make sense that a device talking to 5 (thatās the matter maximum) different ecosystems would be physically talking to 5 different networks too. Each ecosystem has something called a fabric, which essentially handles security and authorisation - by installing certificates on to the matter device.
But ideally we could do with some confirmation of this.
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Sounds nice? I donāt trust google or amazon. We shall see. Iāll keep you posted when I get mine.
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So the dashboard sub views are really coolā¦but how do I get the parent button (i.e. the button you use to navigate to the view) show the state of the items in the subview? Iāve moved all my lighting cards into their own areas (i.e. subviews) so now you no longer need to scroll through a long list - just a couple of taps and youāre done. However, on the āhomeā page all the buttons show an āoffā status even though for some of them there are lights onā¦I just have no way of knowing this now without trawling through each subviewā¦
Is there an easy way to create some sort of state linkage between subview state and the entities in the subview?
This may be obvious, but you put that in each individuals device YML and the re-provision? Or do I put that setting in some sort of master config file?
Create a group that includes all the lights in the subview and set that as the entity tied to the button.
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Nice! That works wellā¦ 
I appreciate the Automation Editorās ability to display automations that donāt reside in automations.yaml (100% of my automations). The read-only view is very convenient and the Migrate feature is a nice addition as well (although I wonāt be using it anytime soon).
Nice to see the Automation Editor is getting some needed attention (including last monthās major facelift). Keep up the great work!
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How do I configure the esp32 to work as a bluetooth device? I have it setup in esphome and it sees it, but where do I go after that?
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Thatās up to how youāve organized your ESPHome. By default, yes, you would add that to each config file. You can also use something like packages to modularize things. Thatās what I do: I have a ble_proxy package that contains common BLE proxy configurations, then import that package into each proxy deviceās config.
Although designed to work together. Thread is not the same as Matter. The two are not dependent on each other.
I doubt HA will tie Matter support to Thread. Matter is effectively an IP protocol. I donāt see why HA would need a radio for any Thread-via-Matter device as long as the border router is behaving in an open way.
Still, Iām skeptical there wonāt be less than open implementations. Even if fully open at first, I wouldnāt trust the Google/Amazon types not to handicap it later on.
Iāll be sitting on the sidelines until the dust settles.
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Thanks. This is sort of what I was thinking - it seemed unlikely to me that a device would join multiple thread networks in order for multiadmin to work, but most of the videos on Matter focus on matter specifically. Perhaps I need to find go and find some deep dive videos on Thread and Border Routers.
Iām in the middle of deciding if I want to get Nest WiFi Pro, which would mean I would have 3 border routers in my home (thatās obviously not the only reason Iām thinking about it though).
Flash it with esphome with this in the config
bluetooth_proxy:
active: true
All this excitement about bluetooth and I donāt have a single bluetooth device in my home relevant to home assistant. Just speakers, headphones, mice and keyboards. I feel like Iām missing out.
What types of bluetooth devices are commonly used in smarthome applications?