I first started with a repurposed Mac Mini that had a mechanical HDD running HAOS. Things got a little slow for me, and I could not find a way to properly use an SSD so I bought a used Lenovo M900 and installed HAOS on it. This gave me some expandability and quite a bit more CPU overhead. (In retrospect, I could have used a USB SSD for data, and it turns out the HDD was not slowing me down anyway. Regardless, I am now where I am.)
When I was first using the Mac mini generic bluetooth devices worked so well that I was questioning why everyone was not using them everywhere. I had 5 Govee H/T sensors and one repurposed HomeKit Onvis motion/H/T sensor. It was Flawless and range was amazing.
After getting the Lenovo I tried to repurpose a M.2 wifi/bluetooth chip from a Dell laptop. It seemed to work fine, but would stop working after a bit.
I then went to the bluetooth guide ( Bluetooth - Home Assistant ) and bought the cheapest adapter that was easily purchasable and in the list. It is difficult to match up a name with a product that is purchasable. I ended up with this adapter from the brand TRENDnet: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003KU4DOG/
This adapter also failed after some time, though it would work again after unplugging and replugging it, then restarting the bluetooth integration, then restarting the Govee integration.
Next, I went for the best adapter in the list that I could find easily. This was the Sena UD100-G03 (CSR8510A10) which had a legit antenna. This is the item I actually purchased: Amazon.com
Same issue.
So I decided to get some USB 3.0 extension cable. Same Issue.
So I decided to get a USB 2.0 extension cable. Same issue.
So I decided to get a powered USB 2.0 hub ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DQFGJR4 ). Same issue.
So I decided to move a WAP much, much farther away from my setup. Same issue.
After a lot of searching, it appeared that bluetooth just didn’t work well. So I got a SkyConnect and bought a bunch of zigbee devices. This was a the best part about the bluetooth struggles. I was very apprehensive about zigbee and this just pushed me over the ledge.
Now I want to get a CO2 sensor. Some use ESP32 wifi, and some use bluetooth.
I also gave bluetooth another try today, just in case things have gotten better. They have not. Same issue:
Here are the examples:
Logger: habluetooth.scanner
Source: components/bluetooth/__init__.py:328
First occurred: 11:41:18 AM (1 occurrences)
Last logged: 11:41:18 AM
hci0 (00:01:95:C1:B6:2A): Successful fall-back to passive scanning mode after active scanning failed (4/4)
Followed by:
Logger: habluetooth.scanner
Source: runner.py:190
First occurred: 9:27:33 AM (4 occurrences)
Last logged: 11:43:48 AM
hci0 (00:01:95:C1:B6:2A): Error stopping scanner: [org.bluez.Error.InProgress] Operation already in progress
hci0 (00:01:95:C1:B6:2A): Successful fall-back to passive scanning mode after active scanning failed (4/4)
hci0 (00:01:95:C1:B6:2A): Error stopping scanner: [org.bluez.Error.DoesNotExist] Does Not Exist
After getting the errors, I can reboot HAOS completely, or I can unplug/replug the USB device and then reload the integrations to get things working again.
I would also like to clarify that I have a few Shelly GEN3 power monitors that I have tried to use as bluetooth proxies, but they just do not seem to work for me. This has me skeptical of other bluetooth proxy situations. I also know that bluetooth CAN WORK. It worked flawlessly with the Mac mini.
Am I chasing a lost cause, or is there something I am doing wrong?