Hi, @Kabala
There are different reviews about working on the built-in bluetooth. Try it.
Except ble_monitor: you don’t need to enable anything. All configuration options are described in our documentation.
First of all thanks for your effort in creating this and also responding to so many queries from your users. Your dedication is admirable.
I hope you can help with getting me started with your addon.
I’m trying to get readings from my LYWSD03MMC with custom ATC firmware and some Vegtrug plant sensors. I’m using HA on a NUC virtualized on ProxMox, and have passed though the BT hardware to the HA vm. On the VM I’m able to scan for BLE and I see the devices.
After about an hour one of my Vegtrug’s is found, but I’m not getting any data from it (entities show no data)
LYWSD03MMC is not found at all. I’ve flashed the custom ATC firmware on this unit. Is this supported, or can I only use the original firmware on the LYWSD03MMC for it to be discovered by your addon?
Based on the fact that an entity was created for your sensor, we can conclude that the component is working, however, the text “0 HCI Events parsed” in your log is still alarming. Yes, it could be a reception problem. But first, you should pay attention to the following nuances:
Many sensors start sending valuable messages only after adding and “pairing” them in the official app (MiHome, Flower Care, etc). In addition, there is some confusion with VegTrug sensors (if I understand correctly) - some of them (with a mac address starting with C4) seem to be FlowerCare sensors and only work with the Flower Care app (not VegTrug). It is also worth checking for firmware updates in the application - for many, the problem was solved exactly at this step. Look at this github issue.
As for LYWSD03MMC - yes, custom firmware is supported. The only condition is that the MiLike option must be activated when reflashing the sensor. Make sure this has been done.
The very first thing to try in case of reception problems is to place the sensors as close to the host as possible. We can think further depending on the result.
I think reception issues with the internal BT chipset in my NUC were the cause of my problems. I’m now testing with a TP-Link external BT USB adapter and immediately get much better results:
DEBUG (Thread-6) [custom_components.ble_monitor.sensor] 1460 HCI Events parsed, 15 valuable MiBeacon BLE ADV messages. Found 3 known device(s) total.
I’m going to play with it this weekend and see if I can get all my devices recognized
Thanks for the kind words. Just in case, I want to note that I am not working alone, without @Ernst, I think, everything would have died long ago ) And maybe it wouldn’t have started at all…
@mio This is what we are currently working on. You need to either be patient a little, or before the release of the new version use template binary sensor.
@Magalex Thanks for your component! This is exactly what I was looking for.
I looked at the templates of binary sensors but did not understand where to replace on with open.
Classes have long been registered in the component (easily checked in the entity attributes). The fact is that an entity is created using the add_entities method obtained in the sensor platform. This method is obtained during the platform initialization stage. The component now creates all entities in the sensor domain. Binary_sensor classes don’t work here.
Soon, the component platform will be split into two, sensor and binary_sensor, after which the switching sensor entities will be created in the binary_sensor domain, and the classes will start working.
[BREAKING CHANGE] now the component spawns binary_sensor entities, that is, the binary sensor classes now work. After the update, new entities in the binary_sensor domain will be created for all your binary sensors.
experimental support for YM-K1501 (Xiaomi Mijia Smart Kettle)
minor fixes and improvements
Don’t forget to delete old binary sensor entities in the sensor domain.
currently home assistant is installed on an old PC I had, no bluetooth - i was thinking of using a pi zero as the bluetooth receiver and then sending this to the HA PC through mqtt. Is there a way of doing this ?