How to stop bluetooth requesting pairing with iPhones

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1

I have HA and use bluetooth with several Govee T&H sensors and it works fine. But repeatedly we see alerts on our iPhones saying home assistant wants to pair with the phone. This is a nuisance - how do we stop it, please? Each time we say no, but it keeps coming back. This gets annoying.

2

Having the same issue since a couple weeks in two iPhones.

1 Like
3

I too am seeing this issue.

4

So it seems the issue is real - and annoying :frowning: - but there’s no hint from anybody who might be able to help.

edit: I opened an issue: How to stop bluetooth requesting pairing with iPhones · Issue #121896 · home-assistant/core · GitHub

5

Posted in the GH Issue but reposting here for visibility.

I don’t have this issue in HA but have had it using BLE with iPhone on Linux elsewhere.

What worked for me was editing the file /lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service, making the following change:

Before:

ExecStart=/usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd

After:

ExecStart=/usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd --noplugin=*

I believe (but have not yet proven) that the issue is the computer advertises BT services (such as audio or file sharing) that require pairing, and iPhone automatically tries to explore them and trigger a request to pair. Adding the noplugin flag removes such advertisements, and just leaves the BLE/GATT interface to interact with devices without requiring pairing.

Hope it helps!

6

Also repeating my post on the issue here … @blackadr many thanks for the tip. FWIW, I don’t think it’s a good idea to modify files in /usr/lib or /lib because they might get overwritten by any system upgrade. Instead it’s better to make a change under /etc/systemd/ in a ‘drop-in’ file like /etc/systemd/system/bluetooth.service.d/10-override.conf that would just contain something like

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd --noplugin=*

I just need to figure out how to get access to the /etc directory on my HA Green now :slight_smile: