BLE Tracker

Configuration
1

I tried using HA’s BLE Tracker integration. It does immediately find and create entities according to the found BLE MAC addresses. I do see them in the known_devices.yaml.

BUT

I do have another one (Samsung G-Tag, the device I actually want to track). It shows up in the GUI but not in the known_devices.yaml. (Maybe I tried to configure some sort of tracking in the past and it has nothing to do at all with the BLE tracker integration… although the integration should find it because it is a BLE device)

Any ideas how to find out where the G-Tag-Device-Tracker entity actually comes from? How could I remove that particular entity in order to start from scratch?

Sidenote:
Deleting devices in known_devices.yaml does absolutely nothing. Devices are still visible in the GUI? Why? (Purging device_tracker entities in the developer tools semms to delete them. But I can NOT delete the g-tag device_tracker entity that way. Why?)

3

Just wondering if it is a Samsung Galaxy SmartTag(2) or an actual Gigaset G-Tag?

4

I know nothing of this particular tag, but there are several things that may bite you, and maybe it is similar for this tracker. To make matters worse, they lead to somewhat contradictory advice :woozy_face:

  1. Some trackers sleep until they are linked to the native app to conserve battery. I think Tiles do this. So in order for them to start transmitting periodically, you need to press the pair button and link the tracker to their respective app.
  2. Some trackers are only visible to the device they are paired to. So if they see your phone, they talk to that and nothing else. Luckily, if they don’t see a paired device they might make themselves known to other devices in order to enable find my tracker functionality. So for instance with Tile, you can hide/disable tiles in the app, so it won’t look for them. Then the tracker will advertise itself.
  3. What do you mean by ‘shows up in the gui’? is this tracker recognised by another HA integration that sets up a connection to it (and might also invoke point 2)? This may not be a bad thing, just another way of tracking it maybe?

Another piece of advice: turn off track_new_devices and use a ble scanner on your phone to find a bluetooth mac for a device you are interested in. Add it yourself to known_devices.yaml. Every person walking past your home, every car driving by, every hue lamp, phone, laptop, tablet, mouse, headphone, stylus, … will add devices to the list, and before you know it you are flooded with ‘known’ mac adresses you have no clue what they are.

5

If it is a Samsung Galaxy SmartTag 2 I would also assume that they would have randomly changing Bluetooth MAC addresses, as they also introduced for all the Galaxy watches from version 5 onwards, for a minimum of privacy.

6

Tiles also have that, I’ver heard people with the same version as I have complain about it and showing logs. But I have hidden them in the Tile app, and they have had a stable mac for 1,5 years. I suspect that when they cannot find the phone, they keep their last MAC in order to be more easily found by others. But YMMV.

7

I can rule out points 1 and 2 beause I had a similar setup with FHEM. I will have a closer look at all my integrations but I am quite sure that I do not have another bluetooth integration.

And about your last advice… I will definitely do this as at least 30 devices (most of them not mine) popped up within a minute.

8

I didn’t mean another bluetooth integration per se, but an integration that supports the specific device. For instance my Switchbot integration supports my ble Switchbot curtains. It uses the Bluetooth integration internally. So in your case it would be an integration supporting the specific tracker that you use. Maybe even an integration that you previously ignored from autodetection. Have you tried clearing the filter in integrations in the upper right corner?