Bluetooth presence detection without Raspberry Pi 3

brianjking · December 5, 2018, 10:58pm

@nukee26 –

Once you obtain the MAC addresses can you re-install the Tile app?
Secondly - How do you determine which Tile’s MAC address is which Tile?
Lastly - If you have any guidance with my questions here any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers! Thank you!

Bit-River · December 8, 2018, 10:29pm

The answer is yes to both of these.

Though I haven’t used it from a Pi3 B, I don’t see any reason why it won’t work.

For the venv, I haven’t tried but it should be fine as long as the venv is allowed to access BLE.

Where would I actually place the Python script? Would this go inside of /home/homeassistant/.homeassistant ?

If you’re running Hassbian, call the script from /etc/rc.local - put it in you pi home directory is easiest I guess.

Though if you’ve used a venv you might have to adjust for that.

Enjoy!

brianjking · December 9, 2018, 6:23pm

@Bit-River – Thanks for your reply. I’m still trying to get this sorted out and I’m stuck…

I tried placed your script in /home/pi/tile.py and /home/homeassistant/.homeassistant and when I try to run python tile.py in either directory it gives me this error

python tile.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tile.py", line 2, in <module>
    from bluepy.btle import Scanner, DefaultDelegate
ImportError: No module named bluepy.btle

I executed pip3 install bluepy inside of the venv at /srv/homeassistant and also tried placing this in /home/homeassistant/.homeassistant as the homeassistant user.

(homeassistant) homeassistant@hassbian:/home/pi $ pip3 install bluepy
Looking in indexes: https://pypi.python.org/simple, https://www.piwheels.org/simple
Collecting bluepy
  Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/bluepy/bluepy-1.3.0-cp35-cp35m-linux_armv7l.whl (515kB)
    100% |################################| 522kB 1.5MB/s
Installing collected packages: bluepy
Successfully installed bluepy-1.3.0

Last issue is I have recorded the MAC address for my 4 Tile’s, however, how do I determine which MAC address corresponds with each Tile?

Thanks, I hope you’re able to help!

Bit-River · December 11, 2018, 8:48am

Could you try calling tile.py with python3 tile.py ? I imagine that should do the trick for you.

Also, on mine I have to run it as root, so sudo python3 tile.py or within rc.local

Finally, for checking which Tile is which tin foil is the quickest way

Just wrap them all in tin-foil (on put them inside a metal box), then unwrap / remove one at a time - using sudo hcitool lescan at each step to see which device appears.

brianjking · December 11, 2018, 5:59pm

@Bit-River – I’m now getting this error when I run python3 tile.py. Again, this is on a RaspberryPi running Hassbian.

Thanks, I hope you can help! I’m almost there…

(homeassistant) homeassistant@hassbian:/home/pi $ python3 tile.py
 * Serving Flask app "tile" (lazy loading)
 * Environment: production
   WARNING: Do not use the development server in a production environment.
   Use a production WSGI server instead.
 * Debug mode: off
 * Running on http://0.0.0.0:5000/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)
[2018-12-11 16:46:47,107] ERROR in app: Exception on /api/search/c8:31:53:38:c9:f1 [GET]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 2292, in wsgi_app
    response = self.full_dispatch_request()
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1815, in full_dispatch_request
    rv = self.handle_user_exception(e)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1718, in handle_user_exception
    reraise(exc_type, exc_value, tb)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/_compat.py", line 35, in reraise
    raise value
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1813, in full_dispatch_request
    rv = self.dispatch_request()
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1799, in dispatch_request
    return self.view_functions[rule.endpoint](**req.view_args)
  File "tile.py", line 18, in device_scan
    devices = scanner.scan(3.0)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/bluepy/btle.py", line 852, in scan
    self.start(passive=passive)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/bluepy/btle.py", line 790, in start
    self._mgmtCmd("le on")
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/bluepy/btle.py", line 312, in _mgmtCmd
    raise BTLEManagementError("Failed to execute management command '%s'" % (cmd), rsp)
bluepy.btle.BTLEManagementError: Failed to execute management command 'le on' (code: 20, error: Permission Denied)
127.0.0.1 - - [11/Dec/2018 16:46:47] "GET /api/search/c8:31:53:38:c9:f1 HTTP/1.1" 500 -
[2018-12-11 16:47:18,110] ERROR in app: Exception on /api/search/c8:31:53:38:c9:f1 [GET]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 2292, in wsgi_app
    response = self.full_dispatch_request()
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1815, in full_dispatch_request
    rv = self.handle_user_exception(e)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1718, in handle_user_exception
    reraise(exc_type, exc_value, tb)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/_compat.py", line 35, in reraise
    raise value
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1813, in full_dispatch_request
    rv = self.dispatch_request()
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1799, in dispatch_request
    return self.view_functions[rule.endpoint](**req.view_args)
  File "tile.py", line 18, in device_scan
    devices = scanner.scan(3.0)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/bluepy/btle.py", line 852, in scan
    self.start(passive=passive)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/bluepy/btle.py", line 790, in start
    self._mgmtCmd("le on")
  File "/srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/bluepy/btle.py", line 312, in _mgmtCmd
    raise BTLEManagementError("Failed to execute management command '%s'" % (cmd), rsp)
bluepy.btle.BTLEManagementError: Failed to execute management command 'le on' (code: 20, error: Permission Denied)
127.0.0.1 - - [11/Dec/2018 16:47:18] "GET /api/search/c8:31:53:38:c9:f1 HTTP/1.1" 500 -

Bit-River · December 11, 2018, 7:19pm

Try

sudo python3 tile.py

brianjking · December 21, 2018, 8:04pm

@Bit-River – Thanks so much for your help thus far. I have it mostly working but have a few more questions and hope you can help!

After each reboot I seem to have to run sudo setcap 'cap_net_raw,cap_net_admin+eip' /srv/homeassistant/lib/python3.5/site-packages/bluepy/bluepy-helper shouldn’t this persist reboots?
If I restart Home Assistant I have to go through multiple steps. Any idea on how I can automate this via cron or otherwise?

After a restart of Home Assistant it seems I have to do the following:

screen
sudo -u homeassistant -H -s
source /srv/homeassistant/bin/activate
python3 tile.py
ctrl + a
ctrl +d

Even though the Tiles are all within 10-12 feet of the Raspberry Pi it seems they randomly show switch states between off and on as you can see here:

Thanks!

brianjking · January 2, 2019, 8:15pm

@Bit-River – Any chance you can help regarding the questions above?

Thanks, really appreciate your time!

Bit-River · January 6, 2019, 8:34pm

Hi,

I’m not sure why you’d have to run ‘sudo setcap …’, I don’t have to do anything similar so perhaps it’s due to the virtual env.

For the second part, I’d put all that into a script then call the script in /etc/rc.local and that should do the trick.

shved86 · August 8, 2019, 4:52am

good day. tell me can i use my phone (iphone) as a tag?