This has been an ongoing problem.
First I don’t own any Apple devices, But I keep getting a new “Apple iBeacon device”
show up constantly in my Passive BLE monitor Devices. Now totaling 55 new devices.
I only have about 5 BLE Xaiomi temp/hum devices total, all the rest (50) are the mystery Apple iBeacon.
I can disable them but doesn’t get rid of them, and they keep coming back as I don’t know how to delete them, nor the even source of them.
Question: How do I delete an Entity like “1CA92E234D00F7B9A2FD4B716A4BF600”, and fix it so it never returns?
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If you don’t want thousands of unrecognized devices showing up then torn off allow new devices to be created in the iBeacon integration.
HA is just doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. Notice and setup any iBeacon it sees. It doesn’t care who it belongs to. It’s just there. That’s how beacons basically work.
If you leave the setting on it will create a new device every time it sees something new. If you don’t want that turn it off. (I recommend you turn it off). If you’re looking for a specific tracker. Turn device creation on find the beacon and get it in your entity list then turn the create device toggle off.
I STILL have over 2000 random device trackers to delete from when I left mine on for two weeks after first installation. Deleting a few at a time I should have them cleared by Christmas.
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Hey Thanks for your recommendation to turn off auto discovery…
But seems like there should be a better way to filter these false positive device trackers.
Like an Option to turn off a specific device as in my case “IBeacon Tracker”.
And Why is this not a common problem with others using HA??
But How Do I Delete these false devices. I only see I can disable them. And now I’m up to 77 as of today.
I’m not 100% sure but I actually think it may be my Moto-G cell phone (Not an Apple iBeacon), but thinking every time I turn on the Bluetooth HA creates another found device.
I’ve not proved this but if this is true why are others not having this same problem.??
I’ve been using the integration for over three years now and this is well known fact about it. No there isn’t currently a better way. The docs for that integration and anecdotal use all say the same thing. It’s acting as designed.
The integration is designed to do one thing.
This:
Hey! There’s a beacon with signal strength x. I’ll log that.
Repeat. Oh this is new
Repeat. Oh this is the first one.
Repeat new one!
Repeat one of the first ones.
This is literally all it’s doing. It is up to you the end user to tell it not to create the items. I agree it should be off by default for multiple reasons. But then that becomes a discovery issue for people expecting to see stuff show up.
So which evil? Default on and load the registry or default off and make sure you turn it on to retain new devices…
Personally I’d choose the one that doesn’t stuff my entity registry full but I digress.
The short version - it’s not a ‘problem’
If you want it changed however there’s a process. (fair warning - don’t expect this one to be taken)
First open a feature request vote post in the section for feature requests (search first to make sure you aren’t duplicating an existing feature) explain your change and justification so others can get behind it.
Sometimes that’s enough especially if it gains traction and a lot of votes. But if you think you ha e support off that you can then open a bug request against the iBeacon integration in core and reference your feature request post. Don’t forget to vote for your own feature request…
But many ask Why so many show up so fast? Most people expect to see three maybe six when they turn it on) You might be suprised how many tags are within 100’ of you right now. I found 60 the moment mine turned on and that turned to 600 within two hours. (busy suburban main road) some Bluetooth devices even randomize thier Mac so they’re harder to track… Those usually rotate between 10-12 addresses and show up multiple times!
Apple, most androids do this with network and some do it with Bluetooth.
Fortunately a MAC address is a predictable series of digits. With each chunk having meaning. Any given chip manufacturer has a specific prefix and many large oems also have one. So you can look up the ones you have and find out at least what manufacturers it is and often exactly what kind of device it is.
Sorry that’s the way it works. I’d strongly suggest turn off discovery when you’re not looking for your device.
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Truly appreciate your time and expert knowledge on this issue.
Yes I’ve not had a problem since turning it off.
Did turn it on briefly to detect a couple new devices and all worked well
Thank you very much for your help.
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I’ve only been running HA since December 2023 but I don’t recall ever seeing an option to turn discovery off (maybe I could have when I first installed it). I have been trying to find such an option numerous times, mostly when I see the many hundreds of Apple tablets/phones/watches mine has picked up anytime I’m trying to do something else with another entity (yeah, live in a big city suburb, near a main shopping street underneath a business with regular visitors). I really explored all the pages and links I could find connected to the iBeacon integration and the ‘CONFIGURE’ button to find this option (to disable disovery) but there’s only the option to specify a new ID to add there and nothing anywhere else. Was it removed
recently?
I just deleted the whole integration to get rid of them, won’t be going back til I find out how to turn discover off or its changed. Most people live in cities, so I’m guessing most HA users do too.
I believe it’s here:
Devices & Services – iBeacon Tracker – three dot menu – System Options – Unselect ‘Enable Newly Added Entities’