PreBuilt Device for ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy

ESPHome
1

Hey,

I’m new to this area so please excuse my questions if they appear basic.

I’ve a Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant and plugged into it is a ConBee II. My issue is when bluetooth is not reaching one of my devices in a distant room. As a result I’d like to expand my “bluetooth network” as such and I’ve seen that might be possible via a ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy.

The first part which has got me stuck is I’m not sure what device I should use here. Everything seems to require building, soldering etc. and I’m not really looking to do that. Ideally I purchase something pre-built with bluetooth and enable that to be a ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy if possible. Could anyone provide some guidance on if that’s possible and what prebuilt device I could look to get?

Many Thanks

2

For a simple BLE proxy, all you need is an ESP32, like https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-ESP-WROOM-32-Development-Microcontroller-Integrated/dp/B0718T232Z. You don’t need to solder anything in the simplest case – just plug it in and go.

1 Like
3

For the use as bluetooth proxy? Not really. Virtually every esp32 base board should do.

I use a lot of these (dirt* :tm:) cheap lolin32 lite boards:

image

The pins don’t need to be soldered for your use case and it’s enough to plug in a micro usb cable into your computer and supercharge the thing with the esphome ble proxy pre-build which can be done directly on this site:

*I bought them for around $3 a piece in the past from the country of origin

4

Careful with dirt cheap. These have a reputation for quality QuinLED-ESP32 - quinled.info

5

I collected more than 100 dirt cheap esp based thingies the last years and they just all do the job. The few one I managed to fry (d1 mini clones) were “self made” while tinkering :boom::man_factory_worker:.

Many people prefer to buy expensive which often is nothing else than re-packed or re-labeled stuff from the same origin. Other times it just means more “man-in-the-middle” which also like to have their share :money_mouth_face:.

Some of my stuff is running since 5 years 24-7 and none gave up yet :man_shrugging: For me it can’t get more reliable than that (for now :wink:)

6

There are also many reports of one in ten failing.

7

Which one in detail? Guess you don’t have any links? :thinking:

While it’s well known that for examples many of the d1 mini clones only have weak LDOs for the 3.3V rail that doesn’t need to be problem if one takes care simply not “overloading” the 3.3V rail. At the same time also the 500mA from the original can be easily exceeded which then will cause instability.