Hi folks,
So I’m using the ble tracking and the tag I have is running through a battery in about a month. I thought that these devices would last longer than that. My guess is that the tag is being polled too often. I don’t know what the default interval is, and is there a way to change it?
Maybe someone can let me know.
Can you share your relevant yaml part?
So this is what I currently have. My first thought was to change the interval under the tracker settings, but I’m not sure that’s correct.
### Bluetooth LE parameters
esp32_ble_tracker:
scan_parameters:
interval: 1100ms
window: 1100ms
active: false
### Bluetooth low energy tracker (binary)
### Guest 1
- platform: ble_presence
mac_address: X:X:X:X:X:X
name: "Guest 1"
id: guest_1
You have the settings for a ethernet connected esphome node - does this fit your hardware choice?
No actually. My esp’s use wifi, I didn’t realise there was different settings. That said, how would that affect the battery life of a ble tag?
No idea but try the defaults which are for WiFi connected esphome nodes and share your findings with us!
Right, but in regards to polling times of ble devices etc, do you know how to change said times? Or what the default polling interval is? Which was my original question.
To my knowledge, this is the only part that would affect battery usage of a tracker (and you already have it set to false, so it’s not actively asking devices to transmit). It should just be passively listening for what devices decide to transmit on their own.
Someone smarter than me may know otherwise, but it sounds like your tracker just has terrible battery life?
IBeacons are passive they do not have two way communications with your HA setup. Signal strength ant etc. Are controlled by the beacon itself.
The only thing HA and your esp proxies are doing is detection. On mine (sorry I don’t know the brand off top of head) they say use KBeacon (android app) to configure the signal strength. Etc.
Also yes WiFi was designed for always on always line powered comms. And as such it doesn’t care about your battery and will eat it for lunch. If you want this to be a battery device research how to make it deep sleep properly but it Will impact your ability to detect beacons reliably.
Just to confirm, when you say that it line powered comms will eat my battery for lunch, are you talking about the device itself, or the iBeacon? I’m using a atom lite powered by usb to detect the iBeacon, for clarification.
Meaning an esp32 connected to a battery.
Wifi itself wasn’t intended for low power situations and therefore is hell on batteries.
Your proxy won’t do anything to the iBeacon. The iBeacon doesn’t know nor care that anything is listening.
That’s what I thought. I was thrown a bit by some of the earlier comments.