BLE gateway on a Raspberry Pi, Debian or Windows PC -> Theengs Gateway!

1technophile · October 7, 2022, 4:18pm

Theengs Gateway is now available also as a docker container

docker pull theengs/gateway

https://gateway.theengs.io/install/install.html#install-theengs-gateway-as-a-docker

Thanks to @maretodoric

m4biz · December 20, 2022, 3:40pm

Hi.
When I try to install Theengs on my HA, I receive this error:

Any idea?

1technophile · December 22, 2022, 12:08am

Hello,

We just released a new version. Could you try again?

m4biz · January 6, 2023, 10:07am

Yes.
I’ve installed last version and it works.
Now I’m trying to use TheengsGateway-MQTT (decoded) data inside Home Assistant but I’m very confused on how to do this…
I’m searching for exhaustive documentation but I can’t find too.

1technophile · January 6, 2023, 11:26am

Hello,

Glad that it works!

If you want the gateway to decode the payload coming from OMG (MQTTtoMQTT decoding) you can refer to this chapter of the documentation.
https://gateway.theengs.io/use/use.html#mqtttomqtt-decoding

m4biz · January 6, 2023, 11:27am

Ok.
I’m trying many ways… I’ll update you with my results.

1technophile · January 16, 2023, 7:36pm

New version available:
https://gateway.theengs.io/install/install.html#install-theengs-gateway-as-an-add-on-in-home-assistant

What’s Changed

Disable duplicate detection of advertisement data on Linux by @koenvervloesem in #85
Bump Theengs Decoder to v1.0.0 by @1technophile in #89

New BLE devices and changes:

Devices	Model	Measurements
BlueMaestro	TempoDisc 1 in 1	temperature/battery
BlueMaestro	TempoDisc 4 in 1	temperature/humidity/pressure/battery
ClearGrass alarm clock	CGD1	temperature/humidity/battery
ClearGrass alarm clock	CGC1	temperature/humidity/battery
GOVEE	H5074	temperature/humidity/battery
GOVEE	H5101	temperature/humidity/battery
GOVEE	H5106	PM2.5/temperature/humidity/battery
GOVEE	H5174	temperature/humidity/battery
GOVEE	H5177	temperature/humidity/battery
Oria/Brifit/SigmaWit/SensorPro	TH Sensor T301	temperature/humidity/battery
Mopeka	Pro	temperature/level/sync status/voltage/battery/reading quality
Sensirion	MyCO₂/CO₂ Gadget	temperature/humidity/carbon dioxide
Sensirion	SHT4X TH sensor	temperature/humidity
ThermoPro	TP393	temperature/humidity

Full Changelog: v0.6.6…v0.7.0

WilliWonka · January 31, 2023, 9:50am

Hey - First of all: Thanks for putting in so much work and effort to help us with your project.

Unfortunately it seems I have problems understanding the way it works.
Assumption:

I have a HA instance on a pi4
I would like to install Theengs on a piZERO and put in in the cellar to get values of my Govees because the range of the HA pi is not sufficient
Installed via pip3 on the ZERO
Connected it to the mosquitto mqtt broker of the HA pi

That’s it? Any settings needed? Theengs HA plugin is not needed?

Thanks for clarifying this to dumb ppl like me

// EDIT: An additional question. Due to very poor performance on the piZERO → Do you recommend the python or the docker installation?

1technophile · January 31, 2023, 10:50am

I would suggest the python one to decrease the layers.

You should be good. Do you see traffic if you connect to the mqtt broker with a client like mqtt explorer?

WilliWonka · January 31, 2023, 11:17am

Oh, yes - Thanks for that hint.
I can see a lot of my devices.

Now is the question: How do I add them to HA?

1technophile · January 31, 2023, 11:52am

Cool that you see your devices, so if MQTT discovery is activated in your MQTT integration you should see them into Settings->Devices & Services->Devices

WilliWonka · January 31, 2023, 12:45pm

That was the missing piece of the puzzle. Thank you for your patience and help!

WilliWonka · February 14, 2023, 6:20am

Me again

Unfortunately my theengs stopped working with the govees. This happened some days ago and I can’t remember changing anything - only that I bought 2 new devices.
With the MQTT Explorer I still see my 2 old devices, but only the ‘config’ topic (Dunno if this is ‘old stuff’).

I rebooted the raspi several times, I have even reinstalled theengs.

journalctl -u TheengsGateway

Shows – No entries –

Connection to the Broker seems to work:

INFO:BLEGateway:Starting BLE scan
INFO:BLEGateway:Connected to MQTT Broker!
INFO:BLEGateway:Subscribed to home/+/BTtoMQTT/undecoded

What to do/debug here? Thanks again.

koan · February 14, 2023, 7:15am

Another user opened an issue yesterday with the same problem, but we haven’t found the root cause yet. Did you update Theengs Gateway? Update the operating system? What does your theengsgw.conf look like?

Maybe try setting the environment variable BLEAK_LOGGING to 1 to see what the underlying Bluetooth library is doing. You can do that in your systemd service unit file with the Environment key.

WilliWonka · February 14, 2023, 7:19am

Did not update the theengs gateway. OS updates not in the last 14 days:

root@raspberrypi:~# ls -lrt /var/cache/apt/archives |tail
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   259536 27. Jan 15:10 gir1.2-gtk-3.0_3.24.24-4+rpt12+deb11u2_armhf.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    59148 27. Jan 15:10 lxtask_0.1.10-1+rpt1_armhf.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1263796 27. Jan 15:10 raspberrypi-ui-mods_1.20230127_armhf.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   308756 28. Jan 01:21 libcurl4_7.74.0-1.3+deb11u5_armhf.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   306240 28. Jan 01:21 libcurl3-gnutls_7.74.0-1.3+deb11u5_armhf.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   257952 28. Jan 01:21 curl_7.74.0-1.3+deb11u5_armhf.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1829216 29. Jan 07:44 git-man_1%3a2.30.2-1+deb11u1_all.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   269816 29. Jan 23:08 libtiff5_4.2.0-1+deb11u3_armhf.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4706728 30. Jan 05:08 git_1%3a2.30.2-1+deb11u1_armhf.deb
drwx------ 2 _apt root     4096 31. Jan 09:08 partial

Theengs config is the standard one:

{
    "adapter": "",
    "ble_scan_time": 5,
    "ble_time_between_scans": 5,
    "discovery": 1,
    "discovery_device_name": "TheengsGateway",
    "discovery_filter": [
        "IBEACON",
        "GAEN",
        "MS-CDP"
    ],
    "discovery_topic": "homeassistant/sensor",
    "hass_discovery": 1,
    "host": "xxx",
    "log_level": "DEBUG",
    "pass": "xxx",
    "port": 1883,
    "publish_topic": "home/TheengsGateway/BTtoMQTT",
    "scanning_mode": "active",
    "subscribe_topic": "home/+/BTtoMQTT/undecoded",
    "time_format": 0,
    "time_sync": [],
    "user": "theengs"
}

I will try the debugging with BLEAK_LOGGING and will let you now as soon as I did this

//EDIT: Wait… The adpater field shouldn’t be empty or?

koan · February 14, 2023, 7:41am

The adapter field is empty by default, that’s no problem, then Theengs Gateway just uses the default adapter.

NachoMas · February 14, 2023, 9:35am

Hi all!
A little of a side question to see if I manage to use the BT gw to solve a Plejd problem. I have two different Plejd meshes due to distance between my garage and my house. For the house mesh I am using the native bluetooth integration from Thomas Loven that is working flawlessly, but I am trying to see if I could use the Theengs BT gw to add as well the BT puck on the garage. I have started the GW as a docker in a NUC in the garage and it does find the Plejd entity: {
“manufacturerdata”: “7703070000230aa544c0e3f11263f584837b00”,
“name”: “P mesh”,
“id”: “F1:E3:C0:44:A5:0A”,
“rssi”: -61
“rssi”: 0
}

which is published under home/Theengsgateway/BTtoMQTT, along with some other discovered BT entities (no sensors, though), but it is not published in the homeassistant autodiscovered topic, since I assume it is not recognized by the GW? According to the Plejd addon (thomasloven/hass_plejd) the BT proxy with an ESP32 is supported, so I assume that it can be done. What do I need to do for the GW to publish the entity as a lights entity? any quick pointers? Thanks!

koan · February 14, 2023, 10:07am

You would need to add support for your device to Theengs Decoder. There’s some documentation about adding a decoder, but if you’re not up to the task, open an issue in the decoder repository and we’ll try to create a decoder if it’s possible.

But I don’t know the Plejd hardware, so maybe just to avoid confusion and disappointment: is it a sensor, or a light you want to turn on and off? Because currently Theengs Gateway is only able to pick up sensor measurements, it can’t control devices such as lights (clocks are the only supported devices the gateway can control).

NachoMas · February 14, 2023, 10:14am

Ah! good point… It is a light I want to control. so yes, it would require enabling on/off type of capabilities. I’ll have a look at the code and try to find some time to contribute it… Thanks for the clarification!

m4biz · March 2, 2023, 5:17pm

Hi.
I’ve succesfully installed Theengs Gateway on my Home Assistant (working on Raspberry Pi 4).
It read an ESP32 BLE device but sends data like RSSI to the Mosquitto MQTT broker (even installed on the same Raspberry) only every 10 secs.

Otherwise if I usean app like nRF Connect on my smartphone, I see the same update every few ms.

I’ve tried to modify SCAN duration and TIME between parameters on my Theengs Gateway configuration file but with no success.
Any idea?
Thanks in advance