Passive BLE Monitor integration (Xiaomi Mijia BLE MiBeacon monitor)

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@Magalex Dear Aleksey,
In one statement - ALL IS WELL, my dear friend!
Very glad to report that your instructions, clear and complete as they were, did result in both sensors getting registered in HA and working fine (after the usual struggle - total 3 hours; some tears, lots of smiles).
For the benefit of others (and to serve as a reminder to my own-self when I acquire more sensors after this COVID nonsense is over), here are the steps as I followed them…

Hardware:
HA updated and current. Running on Rpi3 (I know, I know - will soon move to a SSD).
2 x LYWSD03MMC sensors.

Steps Taken:

  1. Acquire the mac address of the LYs. Easily done via ssh to HA.
$ ha help
➜  ~ bluetoothctl
Agent registered
[CHG] Controller B8:27:EB:7E:50:F2 Pairable: yes
[bluetooth]# scan on
Discovery started
[CHG] Controller B8:27:EB:7E:50:F2 Discovering: yes
[NEW] Device A4:XX:XX:XX:XX:67 LYWSD03MMC
[NEW] Device A4:XX:XX:XX:XX:4E LYWSD03MMC
[bluetooth]# scan off
Discovery stopped

  1. Copied and pasted this (to copy/paste and for added functionality, used MS Visual Studio terminal) into a blank text file and named the sensors LY1 and LY2 to avoid confusion later.
    Logged off ssh.
    This info may be gathered by many ways; and various other BT apps.

  2. Opend the Stream app on my iPhone.
    Important step - In the app’s settings, choose HTTPS sniffing otherwise the whole procedure will go a waste (I learnt it the hard way). To complete this, the usual VPN trust procedure in Settings>General>About>Profiles needs installation. Make sure this profile is verified and ticked green.
    Now, ensure that MiHome app is logged-in (ensure it is logged-out of other devices and region chosen is mainland China - I faced some grief on account of multiple log-in on other devices) and that the LYs are not added. Remove (delete) if needed. This can be done multiple times without any issues. Force close the app and restart it.

  3. On Stream, hit ‘Sniff now’ and immediately move to the MiHome app and commence the pairing procedure - don’t worry if auto discovery selects the LY. Complete the pairing and get the T and RH data from the LY. I paired only one to start with - the LY1.
    ‘Stop sniffing’ on Stream. This took about 65 seconds in my case. Now, goto the sniff history, Edit, Select all and ‘Export HAR’. I did this export to my NAS.
    Charles Proxy app (30 day trial) was used on a mac to open the said HAR file. Use the find feature and find bind_key
    It will be 32 characters long.

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  4. Rinse and repeat for LY2 :slightly_smiling_face:

  5. From here on, things get easier! I had the LY1 and LY2 data ready in VS but not yet pasted in the Configuration.yaml

image
Time for an important Start/Stop procedure (I did struggle here a bit).
a) Stopped HA from here.
image
b) For additional measure, powered off and restarted the pi.
c) Logged-into HA and appended the config.yaml file as shown above.
d) Restarted HA.

  1. Waited patiently for about 15 minutes.
  2. Voila!! 4 new entities magically appeared into the Entities tab! Renamed them - will give a more meaningful name once I have tried them for a few days.
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Well…that is all there is to it!

My best wishes and salute to Aleksey and all others who have contributed to this project and indirectly, to my…happiness - life is nothing but a pursuit of it, is it not :smiley:

People, stay safe and stay happy!

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