Bluetooth BLE - Tiles

I don’t think they made some change that would stop it from broadcasting its MAC…what are you using to scan? A Pi, some other built-in BT or an USB adapter? I think there are apps for phones which also scan for Bluetooth, maybe try one of those…what is also possible is that they didn’t give it a name anymore, so maybe take out its battery, run a scan, then put the battery back and scan again, there should hopefully be only a 1-device difference, which should be your Tile.

Thanks for the reply.

I was using a Pi 4B for the scan. It gave about 50+ entries each time. Also tried the finding differece trick. However, apart from the ones with names, the unknown ones were not consistent.

I’ll take the tile to somewhere else with less interference and try again with some phone apps. Will update with the findings. :slight_smile:

Some updates -

Went to a nearby park and found a spot with no people in 100m.

The app scanner found only one device. Took out the battery and the device didn’t show up any more.

Repeated the procedure a couple of times and I can confirm that’s the address! johnflorin was right, the new model just doesn’t reveal its name (shown as unknown).

Will keep testing with the monitor script and see how the new tile pro performs.

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Any chance I can get a copy of your config.

For some reason I’m getting a parsing error anytime I try and add the Bluetooth or Bluetooth LE trackers and I have no clue why.

The yaml parser I’m using is showing an error but nothing I’m doing is correcting it and there’s no missed spacing that I can see or anything :joy::joy:

I have the non pro Tile and something has changed. The mac address I have been using for the past 6 months now does not work anymore. Apparently, the mac address has changed which doesn’t make sense.

I rescan the tile and found a new mac address. I know that is the correct mac because, mqtt shows the description as Tile. Here is the strange part. Monitor is able to see the mac address for about 25 minutes. After that, it does not see the mac address any more and thinks it is out of range, but it is not. The only way to get it back is to remove and insert the battery again. The same cycle repeats itself.

I have been trying to figure this out for a few days now and I think there are 2 mac address. One is fix but only works for the 1st 25 minutes, after that it changes. Can anyone recommend me an ios app that can detect bluetooth and show the mac address? I have tried a dozen, but the closes it shows is the UUID. I have yet to find an app that shows me the mac address.

Do you have a Windows PC with Bluetooth? There’s an app called Bluetooth LE Scanner in the Store which shows this.

Also, you’ve definitely not installed the Tile app on the phone?

On a related note, after nearly 2.5 years of fine work by the Monitor script, I decided to retire it (and the Pi it’s hosted on) last week in favor of a simpler solution, which doesn’t require MQTT: an existing ESP32 device with ESPHome.

As opposed to the Monitor script, it can do other Bluetooth things at the same time (I was already using it for getting info from some Mi Flora & Temp./Humidity sensors) and seems to scan just fine, with no crashes so far.

In ESPHome the code looks like this:

binary_sensor:

  - platform: ble_presence
    mac_address: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
    name: "Florin ESP Tile"

This can be used for automations which are OK with just on/off sensor triggers, while for creating a device_tracker entity that can be used by the person entity correctly I used these 2 automations (one for regular use and one which gets triggered so that the status is seen correctly after restarting HA):

- id: 'xxxxxx'
  alias: Presence Tile Florin
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.florin_esp_tile
  condition: []
  action:
  - service: device_tracker.see
    data:
      dev_id: tileflorin
      location_name: "{% if trigger.to_state.state == 'on' %}\n  home\n{% elif trigger.to_state.state\
        \ == 'off' %}\n  not_home\n{% else %}\n   unknown\n{% endif %}\n"
      source_type: router
  mode: single
  max: 10
- id: 'xxxxxx'
  alias: Presence Tile Florin Restart
  description: ''
  trigger:
  - platform: homeassistant
    event: start
  condition: []
  action:
  - service: device_tracker.see
    data:
      dev_id: tileflorin
      location_name: "{% if states('binary_sensor.florin_esp_tile') == 'on' %}\n \
        \ home\n{% elif states('binary_sensor.florin_esp_tile') == 'off' %}\n  not_home\n\
        {% else %}\n   unknown\n{% endif %}\n"
      source_type: router
  mode: single
  max: 10
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Also, you’ve definitely not installed the Tile app on the phone?

The Tile app was still installed on my phone and monitor still detects it. After it didn’t work anymore, I have tried a few things and have uninstalled the app from phone, but that didn’t work.

Do you have a Windows PC with Bluetooth? There’s an app called Bluetooth LE Scanner in the Store which showa this.

I have a Windows and 3rd party bt usb dongle That should be fine? As there an alternative way I can download the program and not use the Window Store?

Try to reset the Tile, activate it in the Tile app, then uninstall the Tile app.

It’s possible that the Tile app sent a firmware update to your Tile which changed things, so try to start from scratch. I kept the app uninstalled because of this possibility as well.

As for scanning from Windows, if u don’t want to use the Store, maybe try this? Bluetooth command line tools - work with bluetooth from the command line

Yea, something is fishy going on here. I only have one tile and the above shows 2 mac which is dynamic. The one that starts with EA appears a few minutes after the first one.

It’s possible that the Tile app sent a firmware update to your Tile which changed things, so try to start from scratch. I kept the app uninstalled because of this possibility as well.

I maybe too late.

And if you keep scanning the first one disappears?

yea. It changes to new mac every 30 minutes just about. But the mac address that appears when you insert the battery stays the same.

I am about to transfer account. I don’t think that will help. What you think?

Do you have any Android device handy? Maybe it’s some privacy-related crap on iOS, perhaps the same reason for which the scanning apps on iOS show you UUIDs instead of MACs. If you could reset it and activate it on Android, maybe this will stop happening. Have you by any chance updated iOS just before it broke? This might be something enforced at OS level…

I am currently on 14.6 and I want to say it was working. There is an update of 14.7.1 about a week ago, but I have not update it.

I do not have android. Does the android phone need to be next to me? Maybe I can have my relative activate on their phone and have them delete the app afterwards.

Yeah, just reset the Tile, activate it on your relative’s phone, delete the app from their phone and you should hopefully be OK, I have never had the app on my phone after its initial activation.

This will help only if it was an iOS thing and not a firmware update thing, but worth checking out, I reckon, it will take you 5 minutes to either resolve the problem or eliminate iOS as a potential source :slight_smile:

I will report back. We are in different time zones.

I have an android phone some tiles will be my way in a few days, I will see if there is any MAC address funny business

Well, I think that extra MAC address is when the Tile app connects to the device for management of settings, not for tracking purposes

An update of what I think has happened to the Tile.

I think some firmware update to the Tile has cause the Tile to change it’s MAC address every 30 mins (I am guessing 30 mins) I have tried to transfer to another account, but it doesn’t help.

I have since purchased another Tile of the same type and paired it to my phone. What I have done differently is delete the mobile app as soon as I paired it. It has been over 2 weeks and it working as it should. I am curious for anyone else who uses the Tile and have the mobile app installed is it still working for you.

My Tiles are brand new Pro models, and one of them I reprogrammed the ringer so if there was a firmware update, it would have gotten it.