Combining Bluetooth Proxy and BLE Scanner on a Single ESP32 Board

1

Hello everyone,

I’m working on a project where I want to combine two functionalities on a single ESP32 board:

  1. Bluetooth Proxy for Home Assistant: This will allow my ESP32 to act as a Bluetooth proxy, forwarding BLE advertisements to Home Assistant to extend its Bluetooth coverage. I’ve been using the information provided (Ready-Made Projects — ESPHome).

  2. BLE Scanner Communicating Over MQTT: I also want the same ESP32 to function as a BLE scanner, detecting BLE devices in its vicinity and sending the data over MQTT to Home Assistant. I found an excellent guide on room location detection using the Format BLE tracker (ESPHome room presence detection with Format-BLE Tracker — Home Automation Guy).

My goal is to have both of these functionalities running simultaneously on the same ESP32 board. I’m wondering if anyone has experience with this setup or can provide guidance on how to achieve this. Specifically, I’m looking for:

  • A YAML configuration example that combines both a Bluetooth proxy and a BLE scanner that communicates via MQTT.
  • Insights into any potential conflicts or issues that might arise from running these two functions together on one ESP32 board.
  • Recommendations for optimizing performance and reliability when combining these two features.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

2

I think you probably just want to use this add-on, and get both sets of functionality from just the ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy, rather than having two distinct sets of functionality trying to share the Bluetooth radio, which is also being used for WiFi.