scan_parameters (Optional): Advanced parameters for configuring the scan behavior of the ESP32. See also this guide by Texas Instruments for reference.
interval (Optional, Time): The interval between each consecutive scan window. This is the time the ESP spends on each of the 3 BLE advertising channels. Defaults to 320ms.
window (Optional, Time): The time the ESP is actively listening for packets on a channel during each scan interval. If this is close to the interval value, the ESP will spend more time listening to packets (but also consume more power). Defaults to 30ms
duration (Optional, Time): The duration of each complete scan. This has no real impact on the device but can be used to debug the BLE stack. Defaults to 5min.
active (Optional, boolean): Whether to actively send scan requests to request more data after having received an advertising packet. With some devices this is necessary to receive all data, but also drains those devices’ power a bit more. Some devices don’t need this, in that case you can save power and RF pollution by setting it to false. Defaults to true.
continuous (Optional, boolean): Whether to scan continuously (forever) or to only scan when asked to start a scan (with start_scan action). Defaults to true.
Hoooo, That’s an interesting point, in the esphome documentation while following the setup, the value are those I posted. So I also thought that they were the default.
The documentation is not really clear about that. They give the configuration with setting the values to the same one in interval and window. Then there is a warning, but they never mentionned that those were not the default values.
Still for now it’s working fine with the ethernet parameters even in WIFI, so… I will let it like that for now. If there is an issue later I will change the values to the default ones, now that I know those.
I was under the exact same impression… I’ve read these instructions at least fifty times, but I never had realized, that the values posted as an example aren’t the defaults. In hindsight one could read it like that, especially when taking the descriptions into account, but honestly, who does that?
I fell for the example too and it took me months to realize the defaults were fine. The example should gain a YAML comment that says explicitly “only use these with Ethernet”.
Reading it once it should be crystal clear that this snippet is for ethernet based devices.
The Note specially mentioned to use the default (which never needs to be specified because it’s the default) with wifi as the the settings mentioned for ethernet might cause instability
Please feel free to improve the docs if you think any important information is missing
Yes I may soon hack a PR that explicitly adds that in the comments, because those of us “dumb enough not to read the comments” were operating under the normal human bias of “this block of text is bigger and bolder and therefore our eyes read that first”, which means inevitably — as you see from multiple comments here — that people will continue to miss these comments adorning the big fat bold example, and that is strictly bad.
@orange-assistant The issue is not to read the documentation or not. As there is no other example on the page and no precision with a link to those value directly, it’s easy to be confused.
There is only the ethernet example, and no other, I found it strange as a lot of esp board come with WIFI only, but it’s the only example so they should be the using the default value is how I thought of it.
The warning says to not change default value, but as we have no indication of those on the page, it’s easy to think that the example just before contains the default.
If there is a pr, a simple example at the start of the page or a link to the default value in the warning would prevent confusion I think.
Correct, it’s rather reading the documentation (completely) and understanding it
If you want to take the defaults you don’t use custom values at all. You actually don’t even need to know the default values to use them (that’s why they are default)
I guess it’s to simple and the one in charge for writing docs didn’t even think to present the config defaults/basic which would be nothing more than (without any parameter):
esp32_ble_tracker:
Is already present - like always in the dedicated component page which is actually linked directly (blue text )
It’s nice, that you make such a write-up, but it doesn’t explain why people don’t read the same thing as you…
As you can see here, it is already three against two, so for now the majority of people in this thread have read it the wrong way. Seems like a very good idea, to make it more explanatory, don’t you think? Or should the foremost goal of the documentation be to “just write it”, so it is there? I don’t think so.
It is always a good idea, to listen to other people, where they have problems and to try to solve them, especially when it comes more or less often to questions, that could be clearly addressed by simply changing a few words…
The wording and the example aren’t clear enough for a lot of people, so why not change it to a format, that is understandable for all?
The default values aren’t mentioned anywhere on that page, so people tend to overlook them. Posting a link on that page doesn’t seem to make it better, so what do you suggest?
Leave it and let people use the wrong values or change the wording to make it clearer? What exactly is it? Leave it or change it?
Already on it! If my SublimeMerge does finally finishes its update, I’ll add the defaults as comment to the example. That should at least give some thinking for people like me.
esp32_ble_tracker:
scan_parameters:
interval: 1100ms #default for Wifi 320ms
window: 1100ms #default for Wifi 30ms
and
For WiFi-based proxies, changing the ``interval`` or ``window`` from their default values may result in an unstable WiFi connection. Using the default values for ``interval`` (default: 320ms) and ``window`` (default: 30ms) will usually resolve any instability.
I added the comments to the example, and in the paragraph after that, I added the defaults in the text.
It is there because it is telling you how to configure a related component for the bluetooth proxy. But the full configuration for the related component is documented on the that component’s page.
Another solution would be to change the point at the start of the documentation:
The link is redirect to a page where you can buy the product or for advanced user you have a link to the yaml. This should just have an extract of the yaml or the link to the yaml file as it’s saying to just do the minimum conf… You won’t think that you have to go to the advanced configuration for basic conf.
Then the rest of the configuration would be logical with specific examples and nobody would get confused with the rest of the documentation.
I’ve asked that before, but didn’t realized the defaults were in the description 
I’ve read these instructions at least fifty times, but I never had realized, that the values posted as an example aren’t the defaults. In hindsight one could read it like that, especially when taking the descriptions into account, but honestly, who does that? 
) with 
) 
If my SublimeMerge does finally finishes its update, I’ll add the defaults as comment to the example. That should at least give some thinking for people like me. 
