Main problem here is that the new BT integration is actually a component or building blocking. It doesn’t offer any device integration on its own. For that you need to install other integrations. This is a totally different concept compared to most other integrations. Also this is not well explained in documentation.
Feels a bit that the Core team is too much focused on expanding the BT usage with nice extra’s but forget to make it as simple as possible for end-users.
No it’s not. Everything in home assistant is an integration. zero_config scans your network and lets home assistant know about devices found on your network. discovery adds them if zero_config finds them. Both of those integrations are old. Other integrations that work like this are usb, http, media_source, and cloud. I’m sure there’s others that I can’t think of off the top of my head. Regardless, all of these are included in default_config. Meaning you don’t have to add them yourself. All you have to do is add the integration that you would normally add.
@petro I see your point… but then my statement is still correct because I said “most other integrations”
Also for most of these examples I did not need to configure them or activate them in the UI front-end (as far as I am aware). And to be honest also in the YAML time I always thought that these kind of “lower level communication” things are not the kind of integrations that end-users should care about.
If zero_config doesn’t find your device on your network, you 100% have to manually add it. Nothing has changed in this regard.
You’re telling me that in the 4 years that you’ve used home assistant, you’ve never had to manually add a network device? So you’ve never gone into your integration list in the UI, searched for an integration, and added it by using the hostname or the IP address?
I am glad that it is that clear for you… but are you an end-user?
A real end-user has no clue what zero-config is and what it does. And he also should not care.
Right, and you don’t need to know about any of that. All you need to know is that if your device isn’t found then you have to add it yourself. Like every other device in home assistant.
If your new camera isn’t found, you add the integration for the camera.
If your new hue hub isn’t found, you add the phillips hue integration.
If your new bluetooth switch isn’t found, you add the integration for your bluetooth switch.
Correct …. And:
if I want to track devices that are connected to my router, then I add my router integration
If I want to track devices that are connected to my iCloud account, then I add the iCloud integration
if I want to track devices that are connected to my Home Assistant via BT, then I add the BT integration … oh NO I do not see any device appear let’s raise a WTH
That is what happened here…
Yes, I think it should discover everything, but this was released 11 days ago. Is it really to much to ask for you to manually add a device while all the other bluetooth integrations get up to speed?
No it is not a lot of work… it only needs good explanation
Sorry that my explanations don’t meet your standards.
@petro, I appreciate the work that is done in the software, and I do recognize documentation is a follow-up to such developments.
I believe this is a documentation problem, as with most software. Writing docs tend to lag or get abandoned because the code changes too fast, or some pressing bug must be fixed, or some other burning reason.
But, writing docs is a loss-leader. It takes away time from coding now, but down the road good docs improve public visibility exponentially. That brings in more public (financial and otherwise) support, industry recognition, and additional volunteers. As a side benefits, sometimes it exposes discrepancies in structure of code, or improves design of the ecosystem itself.
No disagreement there. I just don’t understand why people are still complaining to me after I explained it. I’m not the ‘discussion ender’, I’m explaining how things work so that you can move on with your day and get your devices working. However everyone treats my responses as “Petros comments are invalidating this WTH”. If I close the WTH, then yes, it’s not valid for some reason and I’ll post why.
Because you are the pragmatic anti-hero. You wacth the conversation, when you see it going on too long you explain it what is, what needs to be done, so everyone can move on, and so can you. As an authority in HA, people look up to your comments, and will take them as gold, compared to the documentation which is viewed as chaff.
But, heroes are never rewarded in the long term. You may get a quick thank you from grandma for getting her kitten out of the tree, but now everyone wants more. It never ends.
Fair enough. However I moderate the forums, my authority extends to: Managing petty quarrels, resolving flagged posts, and moving topics around. I have no HA authority, I just know how it works.
I started this WTH, cause I really have no clue how to get my Bluetooth devices incorporated into HA, which I wish and what has been almost promised in here, wow look at this great Bluetooth add-on, you see all your home devices under devices popping up!
Well to me even though I see my Bluetooth adapter from my Pi 4 neatly registered under integration with address, nothing else happens, and I try to find help what is it I do wrong, for that is what I think, great people here very smart, they come up with things I try to comprehend but hey need some help.
And petro I do not understand your help, to be honest but that is my fault I guess, although you see I would have loved if Bluetooth had a scan option like all other Bluetooth devices have nowadays, click it and there are all found devices in the radius of 10 to 30 meter. Why is that not so in HA?
I did put Bluetooth in configuration.yaml no idea what it does, and it does nothing, so I look for the next clue here…
And please consider that not all are so deeply into HA coding like some of the gods here, even though I use it since mmm NODO ended maybe 10 years now. And yes many have a language barrier too.
So why is my Bluetooth not working? It is still not solved
I think you have the miss conception that all bluetooth devices will now work in Home Assistant, and that isn’t the case. Only bluetooth devices that have an integration will work in HA.
I do hate quarrels, hate bashing, or playing it at the person, all I wish is for HA to be the great product it is with such super diversity it provides and often great ease of use.
And i wished i was in your shoes when it comes to understanding how it works most of the time or all of the time, but there it fails for me.
And so I ask help.
Thank you
But my raspberry pi 4 has a Bluetooth adapter build in, it has been found and integrated, yet… as I started, it never finds any other device like a cell phone nor music players nothing around in my house, and as with so many nowadays Bluetooth in almost every apparatus.
So why is that and I read someone has a pi 4 and his Bluetooth sees devices, how and why
Yes, neither does mine. Because they aren’t built into HA yet.
They are finding BLE devices that work with home assistant. Like the xaiomi temperature sensor, or ibeacons. Do you have those devices? Do you have any of the switchbox bluetooth devices (Those work too)?
I just got a ble beacon to show up, looks like the pi4 just isn’t that sensative. I see numerous beacons on my phone but it wasn’t until I had a beacon under 2m from the pi that it was discovered.