How to extend bluetooth range

Hardware
8

After some weeks of test I’bound to say that using other Zigbee powered devices such as smart plug/switches solved 90% of my range issues.
Despite this I still have a last problem only: I placed a water sensor in a little well where I have a tank with a submerged pump. If the pump stops to works the water overflow flooding the surface where there is the sensor. Unfortunately the well has concrete wall so the radio signal struggles passing through. So, from time to time I lost the water sensor signal which become “unavailable”.
In that room, where there is the well, I put two star plugs but the signal is not as strong as required.
Is there any other devices that could help me in this particular room/case compatible with deCONZ?

Thank You for your suggestions

Regards

Mauro

9

Hi Martin
Let me get this right are you saying that the pi zero is working as the bridge to extend the BLE range.
Thanks for your post
Nick

10

I use an esp32 running esphome which talks to the mifloras. It’s outside in a weather proof box. It pushes the data back to HA via mqtt or via the esphome integration.

11

Great Thanks Dan

12

Hello @sh00t2kill I’m interested in esp32 platform.
I read the esp32 home site but I didn’t catch how to install a firmware for the first time.
Could you tell me where I can find some info about this?

Thank You

13

Getting started guides are here:

They explain the process better than I could. I use the command line method rather than hassio

1 Like
14

Looking to extend the bluetooth range on a rpi 3 as well. Anyone else was successful in setting the bt-mqtt-gateway up?

15

You can try using long range dongles with external antennas


This being said, Mi Floras have such a short range that i gave up shortly after purchasing few of them.

16

Hmm. I just installed a Switchbox Meter suggested by this post using this github sbm2mqtt only to find out that the temperature gauge is out of range from where I would like to place it.

How much added range did it provide after installing the dongle for you? I am thinking of moving the rpi closer, but it does require a bit of work since I have to detach the rpi from it’s cluster.

17

Hi. Im not sure how much added range it provided, as i originally had LM1010 for my RPi so never used a different dongle.
This being said, you cannot just look at dongle max signal distance - BT is two way communication so it relies on both transcievers in same degree - in reality a good dongle with a good external antenna may extend your range by more like 10-25% than 10 times (unless you’re using good dongles with external antennas on both sides of transmission)

18

Someone tries this? Maybe it’s enough :thinking:

19

maybe this guide

1437×396 113 KB

https://www.danielmartingonzalez.com/en/make-your-own-smart-devices-with-esphome/

1 Like
20

hello, I am struggling to get the bt-mqtt-gateway working for me :frowning:

I keep getting a “bluepy” error as per picture below…

image
image1912×330 26.9 KB

my I ask which OS version you have?

21

You activate your virtual Python environment for yourself only. Superuser still has a default Python environment and you start your script as a superuser. Your script checks for bluepy in the default environment, cannot find it and complains. You then check bluepy presence against your virtual environment again.

22

Thank you for this… unfortunately I am not a great linix user :frowning: but what you said it make sense con concept point of view…

let me get to the details, please… everything should be under SUDO or not?

how woudl you suggest to fix the problem? reinstall python 3 under SUDO?

thank you

23

I am not a great Linux expert either :slight_smile: Probably the easiest thing for you is to just install bluepy to your system Python. It will be available by default for everyone. This is the easiest if the package does not interfere with other Python scripts you might want to run.

If your pi-zero is intended to be used for ble-mqtt gateway only, then using system Python will definitely be ok.

So just run pip under sudo to install bluepy.

24

Hi!

I was reading your posts because i have considerations to put bluetooth thermostats in every room and not sure if the coverage will be good enough…

First i will give a try to a long range bluetooth adapter (e. g. Feasycom FSC-BP119).

But now for another thing I have in mind:
I am using a Samsung tablet (T580) with the HA Companion App on it (far away from my HA Server) as a Dashboard. So i started questioning myself if it’s possbile to use the bluetooth connection of the tablet for extending the range?

25

You might consider this new feature in HA/ESPHome called “bluetooth proxy”:

It will require that you go down the path of using an ESP32 device, but that’s a fun path to travel.

1 Like
26

Hast Du da einen Link zu?

27

Hi Frank,

please remember the language of this forum is english so everybody has a chance to participate and read :point_down:

:zero: Language

We can only support one language here, and that language is English. We appreciate that not everybody can read and write it, but there are a wide range of options out there . We chose this language since it’s known to the moderators and developers, and also one of the most widely known languages.

Regarding the link you are requesting - it probably simply doesn’t exist anymore as the @jwelter told us their used to be a device like this. :put_litter_in_its_place:

Better nowadays is anyway to make use of bluetooth proxies via esp32’s and esphome: :tada:

Beside being probably much better integrated (and available) also external antennas are supported :tokyo_tower:

1 Like