Recommended USB Bluetooth Adapter

Hardware
#1

I’m using Home Assistant Yellow and would like to add a USB Bluetooth adapter, preferably with an external antenna.

When reading the docs under:

The recommended HIGH-PERFORMANCE ADAPTERS are:

CSR8510A10 - however this is a quite old chipset with Bluetooth 4.0 only (we are at BT 5.3, BT 5 has much increased range) and apparently there are many cheap adapters pretending to be a CSR8510A10. Most of the products given in the list are hard to find.

BCM20702A0 - also a quite old chipset (I can find issues from 2014 with a simple google search) and Bluetooth 4.0 only.

I’d like to know if there is a modern Bluetooth 5.x USB adapter which can be recommended for use with Home Assistant Yellow?

Thanks!

#2

This may not answer your question but…

I found bluetooth worked much better when I abandoned my bluetooth dongle and used a bluetooth proxy instead.

ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy

2 Likes
#3

I have a bluetooth proxy based on ESP32 running already. Unfortunately my SwitchBot curtain devices are offline a lot in HA. I was hoping a fix USB dongle would work better.

#4

I just purchased an Asus USB-BT500 which is on the recommended list. I have not used it yet.

My Yellow has bluetooth on the pi command module but it continually drops in and out. I presume that I will have to disable it. Does anyone know if how to do this?

I have also had problems with Switchbot so I am hoping that an external usb will help.

#5

I’ve updated the ESP32 bluetooth proxy to the latest esphome version, and also the switchbots to the latest firmware. Now it seems more stable and reliable!

I also have a few Shelly Plus (with the Bluetooth in Active mode), which I updated to the latest version. Maybe this did the difference?

Anyhow, I will keep an eye on the situation, but for now it seems I will not need a USB BT adapter.