For example, or even this if you want to save even more money 
That looks good, but I donât think you can order only one. 
Not on Alibaba, but on Aliexpress you can.
Just an idea and suggestion with the above, there are so many different small Bluetooth trackers around to chose from, and depending on where in the world you are located you might also want to go for a more well known brand like Tile, Blue Charm, Nut etc.
Just out of curiosity - What are your reasons thinking that having Bluetooth on all the time sucks?
I Agree with terryb , I only turn on Bluetooth when i need it. Why ?, 1. It drain battery. 2. i find no reason that other devices should be able to âpoll/pokeâ my Phone, just because i have Bluetooth on for No reasons, when i leave the home ( or do you fancy going through a Shopping Mall, thinking itâs relevant to have your Bluetooth running, so your phone can âreactâ on every other broadcasting Bluetooth Devices ? )
Beside Bluetooth talk on the 2.4gHz frequency , Same as your Zigbees and Other Wifi Devices. ( Another good reason to only turn on Bluetooth when you need it )
While I agree with some of your points, the big advantage of using an iPhone as a Bluetooth beacon is its continually changing Bluetooth MAC address, so that the iPhone can never be uniquely identified by shops in malls etc. as they like to do to track specific customer returns, or even your flat mates, neighbours, colleagues or anyone else trying to track your presence at home, work or anywhere else locally.
This is also why the Identity MAC address and its related Identity Resolving Key is required to track any iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or any Android phone with a recent Android OS version.
With hardware beacons I do not know any which have this changing random MAC address feature. so they will always be uniquely identifiable by anyone else who so wishes.
@BlueCharmBeacons - do you know of any hardware Bluetooth beacons with a random MAC feature?
As for battery drainage all I can say is that with modern BLE the LE stands for Low Energy, and from my experience any additional battery drainage to not having Bluetooth enabled is negligible. The same, from my experience, with any interference, or real world lack thereof, with 2.4gHz WiFi or ZigBee.
But sure, everyone is free to turn Bluetooth on or not whenever they wish, I was just curious as to the reason why @terryb1 felt it would suck.
Or hack you through bluetooth, regardless, the âactivityâ drains battery
LowEnergy is for the devices, not Your Phone, beside many Hardware and Security experts/companies recommend you turn off Bluetooth when you dont use it, Why is that ?
Good to hear you donât experience Network issues on 2.4gHz , however it seems like alot people in here does, without knowing why
Same as i also doubt you are aware how and when your bluetooth actually will contribute, or suffer, in a crowded 2.4gHz network
Imagine a family, transferring files, streaming music etc, from 3-5 devices, to another 3-5 device, spread all over the House ( Just an example )
The additional battery drainage, i also doubt you have ever âtested/monitoredâ, compare 24 hours (on for no reasons) and 1 hour for a purpose ( Just another example )
PS: I donât even need to use Bluetooth 1 hour a week( On my phone ! ), only use it for manual syncing, and occasionally transferring files
Can you use a Tile for this without using the Tile app? I would prefer something that fits in my wallet.
boheme61 summed it up nicely.
I didnât know that bluetooth does that as well. I have my WIFI set up to do that.
I do not feel comfortable giving an Identity Resolving Key to an app. Is the same key used for MAC address ID for WIFI (which is more important to me when I am traveling)?
All somehow sensible scare points, but in all the 18 years of using an iPhone, mostly with Bluetooth on, I have not experienced any of them. And with any Bluetooth, WiFi and ZigBee interference I suggest anyone to do the sensible thing, and do not place the receivers/transmitters right next to each other. Keeping this rule I also never had any issues with my many ZigBee, WiFi and Bluetooth devices and their reception in all those years.
So do you two also turn off WiFi whenever you leave the house or not being near any AP you regularly connect to, and only turn it back on when coming home, if you are so worried about battery life? Iâm just really curious about such things.
But enough of this Bluetooth pros and cons - thankfully weâre all free do turn it on or off however we see fit for ourselves.
I honestly donât know, as I have no personal experience with any Tile trackers. The only thing I am aware of is that most credit card sized trackers which nicely fit into wallets do not have replaceable batteries, so you have to replace them with a new one once the battery is empty - a wasteful personal no-go for me.
With WiFi you actually do get a choice to use Private Wi-Fi Address in each connected AP setting, so you can keep a static address in your home network to get always get the same IP form DHCP, or to allow for MAC address filtering etc. while keeping random addresses for public APs.
Due to this setting option there is no actual IRK for the random WiFi MAC addresses.
While I can only guarantee you that we do not track or send the Identity MACs and IRKs, or any setting data of Theengs Gateway (Add-on), I donât assume any of the other implementations do either, as this information would be useless to anyone, unless they are anywhere you live or at the places you frequent.
But sure, I also understand the fear of entering such details, not knowing exactly what they could actually be used for.
Nevertheless this still is the most private and secure way of using a BLE tracker, if you donât let anyone else use your macOS account, if you have a Mac, if you donât let anyone else use your HA admin account, if you donât actually write down or tell anyone the Identity MAC and IRK of your iPhone
Many people do however use hardware trackers or even older phones, and are very happy with such a solution - you should just be aware that with these you do broadcast your presence everywhere with a uniquely identifiable static Bluetooth MAC address.
The phone handle that them self , beside My Phone is a WIFI Client, No WIFI networks tries to Connect my Phone to itâs âNetworkâ ( When i go out the door âout of reachâ the Wifi turns it self of ! ). You do know the difference between WIFI vs Bluetooth , right ?
[quote=âDigiH, post:30, topic:719715â]
While I can only guarantee you that
So are you Saying that YOU And Your âRecommended Boddyâ BlueCharmBeacons, are just Sellers Advertising in this Forum ?
What is your problem???
All I was trying to do is helping @terryb1 understand that any Bluetooth beacon would be the best way of registering him being home or not to turn on his camera, being the most responsive option out of many other possibilities.
And as he seems to be very privacy and security concious I also tried to make clear the difference between constantly broadcasting a static Bluetooth MAC address and random Bluetooth MAC addresses, only idetifiable with an IRK.
I do, but do you really, when you actually say silly things like
LowEnergy is for the devices, not Your Phone
At least on iOS these Bluetooth beacon messages are definitely BLE, and yes, they do not affect the battery life much at all, even when on all the time.
I do not know what kind of phone you have and I do not really care if and how itâs Bluetooth affects its battery, but @terryb1 obviously also having an iPhone he should not be worried about this particular side of having Bluetooth on. For any other reason he is surely free to not turn it on.
You somehow still are not getting it, do you?
My suggestion was to use the freeware, open source Theengs Gateway Add-on together with his already existing iPhone as the totally free, therefore cheapest, most quickly responding Blueooth option to register him being home or away. Hardware beacons as an alternative only came up after he voiced concerns of having on Bluetooth the whole time.
Why donât you actually simply give @terryb1 your preferred solution for his original question. That might actually be helpful.
You might be right, in certain scenarios, i know my WIFI Router detect my Phone way before Bluetooth is within Reach ( specifically before most BLE communication is within reach )
Maybe right on this also (ofcause), however you canât chose âsettingsâ like only communicate, with BLE devices, itâs bluetooth on/of on your Phone
I was just curious why/how someone can recommend having bluetooth on all the time ( Yes i do know many people have as well as many have "auto-connect to open WIFI network , As you put their free choice
In Terryâs scenario im still a bit in " the dark " as itâs not quite clear where/how his environment looks like, and which kind of scenarios he tries to âprotectâ him self against
I think he self suggested âbuttonâ in his phone-app, he him self might know whether his WIFI is accessible, before Bluetooth is an âoptionâ to rely upon
A delay (in right place) could also be an option, as âold timeâ bugler-alarms" have, person have 5-10 seconds to reach the console and start typing password , this of cause depends upon his ârequirementsâ, i.e does he need the Camera to immediately start recording, when a person enter the room ( I.e sticking his head in ? ), or does it give rooms for i.e an additional triggers, such as another motion-sensor and/or delay etc.
Only He knows his âroutinesâ and the âintrusionâ hi wantâs to keep an eye on.
i.e What will a âstranger/uninvitedâ possible do in i.e 5 seconds ? set the place on fire ? , steel cookies from the desk ?
Another Option could be to just record at motion(when alarm activated), but firing the siren/send notification after 5-10 seconds delay ( his not home anyway, so he canât kick out the intruder )
The small ârecord-sequencesâ he can automatically delete, periodically
I would probably ( in his scenario ) start with the button-in-app, as i most likely have to (pick-my-pockets ( or have the phone in hand) anyway , before i enter the door
Anyways im on on my WIFI, before i enter the front-door( And way before most BLE devices would be âdetectedâ , in this matter BLE sucks ) ( wifi is not always reliable(fast responding), thou then would probably neither Bluetooth be ( or Zigbee ) be
PS: As you express your self as in âcahootsâ with @BlueCharmBeacons , i suggest you say this from beginning, so people are aware of this , I have nothing against BLE/Beacons etc and BlueCharm seems to guide people who want to adapt these to HomeAssistant , in a good way.
But as both BlueCharmBeacons And You responds to this Topic, i find as abit âoverwhelmingâ sales strategy
Yes i totally reject door sellers, donât even wanna listen to what they have to say, about their products, unless im dying for an ice-cream, and they happen to have one in their inner-pocket
To fully clarify things in this respect, @BlueCharmBeacons and myself are not in cahoots in any way or form, apart from us having implemented BlueCharm beacons in our Theengs Decoder, like we did with Inkbird, Govee, SwitchBot, Qingping, Xiaomi, Feasycom, Ruuvi ⌠and all the other brands which we created decoders for.
And we do note at the bottom of the Compatible BLE Devices page, that
⌠does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by or of them.
So your supposed cahoots again was just based on uninformed assumptions, or possibly we are in cahoots with all of them 
Me asking him if he knew of any hardware Bluetooth beacons with randomised MAC addresses was only because I have no problem with asking someone I think might have more insight into hardware beacons than I do.
Again, this might be an Apple thing, but when you have an iPhone, Apple Watch, a Mac, possibly HomePods and what not, they are actually all aware of each otherâs BLE low energy beacon broadcasts, it is call Continuity, so that you can easily transfer files from the iPhone to the Macs or vice versa, quickly tap a HomePod with your iPhone when you come into a new room to have the the music playing in that room as well, have any incoming mails, messages, notifications or calls automatically transferred to the Watch when the iPhone is in another room ⌠and so many more possibilities with Continuity that yes, this convenience is definitely worth having Bluetooth on all the time in such an environment.
This is obviously the case with your set-up, but definitely not for mine. Why would I want my WiFi to blast so far outside of the home where I actually donât really want to use it, and possibly only might interfere with neighbours WiFi? It is nicely located right in the middle of the home and the signal strength adjusted so that the whole home is covered well, but not to pollute the wider surroundings.
Whereas well placed ESP32 proxy antennas do pick up my BLE beacon well before I get into WiFi reach. Exactly how it is planned and desired.
So it really isnât much of a matter of one or the other sucking, but having a set-up which doesnât suck or one which does.
ADDENDUM: And we almost completely forgot to also worry about all the NRF24L01+ devices I have, which also use 2.4 GHz. Still, all the WiFi, ZigBee, Bluetooth and NRF24L01+ have been working fine without any issues for the last 10 years, with how I planned them and set them all up.
Yes i did read post from you in i.e openmqttgateway ( In regards to 433/ 868 Mhz ESP devices , in specific, which i plan to replace my basement/heating system with )(Not Theeng thou !) 
, thou didnât knew you âhad a hand onâ Theengs Decoderâs and Theengs Github as well
Thanks for the clarification , and No my commend wasnât based on assumptions, but the fact what you said( as mention above )
" While I can only guarantee you that / we do not track or send "
Admit that it sounds a little more than just âa good recommendationâ from an âaverageâ user, or ?
True, itâs not mentioned whether You mean, Theeng (Devices) or the BlueCharmBeacons, but apparently that also seems irrelevant
Yes, i do have WIFI coverage on all 2 floors + Basement, and my Garage, and nearest parts of outside property, And nearest neighbor is +100m away, so i doubt a âpolluteâ my surroundings ( actually never âcheckedâ the end of my 50m driveway, maybe i can âcoverâ when the mailman opens my MailBox 
Yes Bluetooth cold be a âreplacementâ for some purposes in a Home-Environment, like my place (in doors) , however as i donât carry my phone on me, and donât have any clothes with washing-machine proved âbeacon-trackersâ build-in, i also find it âoddâ to carry around a âBeaconâ around my neck, when im home, to control lights and music etc. while im moving around, but hey !, thatâs me.
[/quote]
And that was what i pointed out, we all have our âpreferencesâ and specific use-cases.
In Terryâs case, with âunreliableâ near by Persons, maybe Bluetooth is not the best , out of security perspective
[quote=âDigiH, post:34, topic:719715â]
So it really isnât much of a matter of one or the other sucking, but having a set-up which doesnât suck or one which does.
Thatâs Your best commend so far 
, so true
Not âweâ You ! almost forgot . I, well i donât know why you âaddedâ this
There is no relevance in the context of why one should have Bluetooth on 24/7 on the phone, nor why anyone should implement Bluetooth at all, in ones Homeautomation system
Yes you wont get far with that hardware, i assume you only have 500MB Ram ?, where as HA recommended minimum is 2 GB
2
So this should be your first and highest priority, which buy you some time, to âspinâ on your ideas, and tips you get i.e from the Forum
I.E Maybe your cam should be on, all the time, as some mention (best way for you to verify it works, before you leave !) , then either record on all motion, while you are away(Alarm is On) , or create recording-automation with additional conditions. Like âNot, when my-phone is on wifiâ and/or Secret.Button not âoffâ .etc ( ⌠just use your imagination, buy a door sensor, and/or motion-sensor also, combine them in a routine .
I know you are New, so you have time to Search this Forum, and ask in âActiveâ Topics, related to Alarm/Camera automation etc, Before your new HA device arrives
That is if you donât have an old laptop , which fill the requirements for HAOS
The Simplest, craziest and cheapest idea i can give You is, Buy a Door sensor, a tine device, Zigbee or Wifi
⌠here it comes, dont put it on any door, put it anywhere close to your door, maybe hide it, or just in the nearest drawer ( the part with the Battery inside ) , the other tiny piece (magnet, fits in your wallet) you take with you when you leave ( The Door-sensor will then report âOpenâ , it triggers your Alarm/Recording automation On"
When you come home you attach the tiny piece to its âcounterpartâ again, Door-sensor reports Closed, donât Record/Alarm of 
, (combine this with your Phone on/off Wifi)
I think the simplest/cheapest/quickest option would be using the Shortcuts app for iOS to create 2 buttons in the Shortcuts widget for my iPhoneâs home screen âturn camera onâ and âturn camera offâ. Then I will test WIFI detection and bluetooth beacons.
But how often will the Home Assistant âcheckâ the WIFI and Bluetooth signals to see if the iPhone has left/returned? How long does it take between getting within WIFI or bluetooth range for the iPhone to try and connect? Let alone for the HA app to realise it has connected?
One thing that concerns me is that sometimes when I am home and I pick up my iPhone it is not connected to WIFI anymore (maybe because I have not used it all day, or the connection dropped or something?). That would mean that when I am home there is a chance the camera accidentally turns on and records/detects me (annoying). With Bluetooth I am not sure if it will stay connected because I never leave bluetooth on for long periods. Will test.
Yes, I am going to replace it. I have a gaming laptop that I could dual boot Ubuntu and leave running 24/7, but if I wanted to game (rarely, maybe 1-2 times per week, and in that home office) I would have to turn off HA (that would be ok with me as long as it all starts working again when I boot back into Ubuntu). The other option is to buy a Raspberry Pi 5 (probably the 4GB version?) and run it 24/7.
This is an interesting idea. Do you have an example of a device which has a magnet I can fit in my wallet? The ones I found (the Tapo door sensor) look quite big.
Right, neither of these solutions is âBulletProofâ, but as you say, you have to test such scenarios, on your particular âcircumstancesâ
Thatâs why you should have 2/3 âconditionsâ as someone also mentioned above
Like, connected to wifi âtrueâ, AND secret-button Off
Tapoâs Door sensor requires Tapoâs 868 / 922 MHz Hub( I donât think there is any integration yet which supports Tapoâs New Hub(H200), so you need to find something similar
So first you have to decide, whether you will go for this (433-922Mhz), Or using Zigbee ( Also requires A Coordinator/Hub ) , Or whether you will go for a âstraightâ Wifi Device (2.4gHz, and using i.e local Tuya integration for this.
Then you can Google, i.e âdoor / window sensor wifiâ
PS: Also when you come to the stage where you have to create your automation, you should also look into which entities/services it provides to HA, make it a whole lot easier
Could I use a NFC sticker/card and my iPhone or a NFC reader? Eg. put it near the door and every time I am leaving the house and I want the camera on I put my phone up against the sticker (like using Apple Pay/Wallet in a store I guess) and it triggers an event.
Quicker and easier than opening/unlocking the iPhone and pressing a shortcut button I guess.
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Yeah. sounds like a good solution, my âcrazyâ idea, just âsprung outâ of the fact i have 1 wifi door sensor, lying in a drawer, unused ( so far ) , havenât figured out where it could fulfill " a valid need " , so next year i might still find it lying there
( The small âmagnetâ part is 3.5cmX2cmX1cm ) âMain Partâ is powered by 2st 1.5V AAA batteries 6cmX3cmX2cm