Raspberry PI4 built-in bluetooth interference with USB 3.0 SSD disk

Hardware
1

Hello,

I am using home assistant os on raspberry pi 4. Currently I have a couple of BLE devices (Xiaomi Temperature and Humidity sensors) which broadcast BLE signals.
These are captured with the built in wifi+bluetoth module on the raspberry.
But as my smart home is growing, and I am adding devices further from the pi, bluetooth range and reception is becoming a problem.
Does anyone have any experience with adding a bluetooth dongle to the pi?
Will these dongles work natively with home assistant?

I am running home assistant of an SSD disk. I discovered that when it is connected to a USB 3.0 port, the bluetooth range of the pi is significantly reduced. This is a known issue as far as I know with USB 3.0 ports as it is causing interference. The devices need to be really close to the pi for the built-in bluetooth module to pickup their BLE signals (<3 meters.)

If I move the devices within this range, they are picked up instantly in home assistant.
Also, i discovered that if I connect the SSD to a USB 2.0 port, they work as expected with larger range (~10 meters).
Would adding a bluetooth dongle to an usb extension cable solve the issue?
Anyone have any experience with this issue?

Any help appreciated.

2

Yes

Everybody with an RPI4 using USB3 with any kind of radio, being BT, Zigbee or ZWave.
The USB3 on RPI4 is an EM radiator :wink:

1 Like
3

You can use an esp32 to capture their signals and send them to HA.

4

Running into the same EXACT issue. Did adding an additional BT usb dongle help?

I have a couple of BLE sensors from Xiaomi and Govee. Today morning, I added a USB 3.0 HDD enclosure to the PI4 to capture and store videos from my various IP cameras. Well, tonight I went to check all my measurements for the day. What I found is that none of my BLE sensors (all Govee and Xiaomi) beyond a 3 meter (~10ft) radius were reporting any data. They all stopped around the same time I connected the usb drive. As soon as I disconnect the drive, the sensors are able to communicate with the PI4. Connecting the drive to usb 2.0 interface works fine so for the time being thats what Ill do.

5

Switching to USB2 solved all my problems!

Could it be possible that they interfere in both directions? I ran the flexible IO tester to see how my external SSD (Samsung OEM on a Mokin case) performs with very random access and the the IOPs/s almost doubled on USB2—from ~500 to ~900.

Here’s the test, if your interested:

fio --name TEST --eta-newline=5s --filename=temp.file --rw=randrw --size=2g --iosize=10g --blocksize=4k --ioengine=libaio --fsvnc=1 --iodepth=1 --direct=1 --numjobs=8 --runtime=60 --group_reporting