Passive BLE Monitor integration

Calorian · August 4, 2022, 7:38am

I can also confirm that enabling active scan in the old integration does fix the updates on the new integration.

By enabling active scan it also shows up the other values (voltage, battery etc).

WhimsySpoon · August 4, 2022, 9:23am

Does this mean that by using Active Scan (in the new integration), we can expect to see faster battery drain? One of the key benefits of the BLE monitor integration was it’s passive scan.

WhimsySpoon · August 4, 2022, 9:24am

Has anyone found a way to see the mac addresses of the discovered devices? I have 10+ plant monitors and they all show up as Flower Care. It’s impossible to know which one is which.

In the screenshot below, the devices with the mac addresses are temp/humidity monitor devices.

Ernst · August 4, 2022, 9:36am

Its on the todo list already,

github.com/home-assistant/core

Show MAC (needed for identification)

opened 09:05PM - 03 Aug 22 UTC

dedors

integration: xiaomi_ble

### The problem I have many Xiaomi BLE sensors. I need a way to identify them…, that can probably only be done if I can see the MAC address of the device. Please show the MAC address on the device info panel, as well on the integration page when a bindkey is needed. Side note: on the integration page, some xiaomi_ble devices appear with the mac address (maybe because of bad connection?), most don't. And when listed (after adding) on the integration page, it only shows the device type, while other integrations show the name if the device was renamed. ### What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue? 2022.8.0 ### What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core? _No response_ ### What type of installation are you running? Home Assistant OS ### Integration causing the issue xiaomi-ble ### Link to integration documentation on our website https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/xiaomi_ble ### Diagnostics information _No response_ ### Example YAML snippet _No response_ ### Anything in the logs that might be useful for us? _No response_ ### Additional information _No response_

Workaround, hold your hand on it and check which one increases in temperature.

robvandegoor · August 4, 2022, 9:45am

The workaround I used was to put my hand on the illuminance sensor. This should change immediately the sensor reading.

paddy0174 · August 4, 2022, 11:45am

I put sensor by sensor in a glas of water. Many ways…

Would be interested in this as well. For what I understand, active scan means, HA scans for the advertisements, not polling the device. But I might be totally wrong here.

Ernst · August 4, 2022, 12:38pm

Yes, it will increase battery consumption slightly, but not that much. I thought they had raised an issue for bleak, to allow passive scanning in the core integrations, but dont know the status of that.

baz123 · August 4, 2022, 4:23pm

I think I’ll hold off updating Core and OS for a couple of cycles as BLE working is vital for my setup - too much depends on it

WhimsySpoon · August 4, 2022, 4:33pm

I (and a few others) are running both in parallel and they’re working fine (so long as Active Scan is enabled in this integration).

The new integration is clearly a 1.0 and isn’t nearly as far along as this component, but then it’s an initial release. Given that Ernst is assisting with the official release, I have no doubt that it’ll eventually achieve feature parity.

My only issues are:

the lack of visibility of mac accesses (being looked into)
Using active scans rather than being passive
No support for iBeacons/UUIDs
Not (yet?) supporting the custom firmware on the Mi Home Temp/Humidity sensors

It’s worth updating (with a backup) just to see what is and isn’t working for you.

baz123 · August 4, 2022, 4:45pm

No, it’s never worth “just updating” - I don’t have the time to fix all the broken stuff. I usually wait until just before a new release but I was away at the end of July.

Ernst · August 4, 2022, 4:45pm

I think all the above issues will be solved in a future release, but it is indeed a 1.0 version that will be improved over time.

paddy0174 · August 4, 2022, 7:29pm

It’s not meant for you to fix stuff, but if you have problems with one thing, you should consider, if the advantages of a new version (regarding everything in that release) outweight the problems of other stuff. Sooner or later you will have to update, because other dependencies will likely stopping to work, if they aren’t updated.

I’m not saying you should upgrade in this case, but you should consider the advantages (and disadvantages) for your setup if you don’t upgrade.

But for this case it doesn’t matter at all: if you upgrade the core and don’t enable the new BT integration in core (assuming you haven’t enabled default_config), you don’t have to worry, all stays the same. You will still use this integration here and not the native HA one. My suggestion here would be, stay with your usual upgrade rhythm and just don’t enable the new, native BT integration. That should keep you safe with the core, and you can still wait for everything else to be integrated without missing out on new versions. Who knows when specific devices will be implemented…

baz123 · August 5, 2022, 1:58pm

Yes and I usually do (but not until the last release of the cycle as that is the most pain free method) as leaving upgrading can introduce other issues.

However, I am very dependent on the BLE stuff working and don’t have the time to sort issues out right now.

So I’m in a 'ain’t broke; don’t fix" mode currently.

There is nothing in the recent releases I need, so happy to bide my time and wait for it to be more stable.

Devanl · August 5, 2022, 9:01pm

In the future will there be a good way to identify if the sensors I am using now in BLE Monitor are supported by the core integration (ie ATC and ThermoPlus)?

1technophile · August 6, 2022, 2:36am

Passive scanning support has been added in v0.15.0

Ernst · August 6, 2022, 8:01am

They are working on making individual devices better recognizable, by adding the Mac address to the device info, but that will most likely be in the release next month.

WhimsySpoon · August 6, 2022, 8:45am

Is anyone else having the issue whereby the new integration only scans for a few minutes after every reboot? I’m wondering if this is caused by running the Passive BLE monitor integration at the same time.

Ernst · August 6, 2022, 9:55am

Try to enable active scan in BLE monitor. Several users have reported that this helped.

Ah, sorry, I see you already have this enabled. Could you try and see if it continuous to work when ble monitor is disabled/removed?

WhimsySpoon · August 6, 2022, 11:19am

Thanks, I think that might be the next step. I have a rather exotic dongle (stop sniggering), so it may also be that.

WhimsySpoon · August 6, 2022, 3:31pm

Disabling this Passive BLE monitor integration does seem to have solved the problem. Unfortunately I’m still relying on this until the new one achieves a closer feature parity, so I may need to disable the new one for now.

I do have another dongle that I can add and give them exclusive use. Hopefully that will work.