- ESP32 BLETracker
- Arduino IDE Notes (outdated)
- Have you found a crash? Help me to fix it.
- Tested BLE Devices
- Home Assistant integration
- Licence
- Support my work
A simple example describing how to track a Bluetooth Low Energy device with an ESP32, the MQTT protocol and Home Assistant. Please note that the targeted device can't have a changing BLE address (normally called random instead of public address).
Use PlatformIO to build and deploy this application, remember to install git in order to allow PlatformIO to download automatically all the required dependencies.
You have to modify the user_config.h file inserting the correct information to connect to the WiFi and to the MQTT broker.
The GATEWAY_NAME is used as Client ID to connect to the broker so be sure it's unique.
The battery level can be read from the devices providing the Battery Service (0x180F) and the Battery Level characteristic (0x2A19), check the availability using a nRF Sniffer i.e. nRF Connect
This feature was successfully tested with a Nut Mini, using other devices you could have connection problems.
If many devices are discovered the battery level check can be very slow causing frequent Wi-Fi disconnection so that I have introduced a whitelist containing the Mac Address of the devices to check. The whitelist is in the form:
BLE_BATTERY_WHITELIST "XXXXXXXXX","YYYYYYYY"
Mac Addresses have to be uppercase without ":" or "-" i.e "BA683F7EC159"
The application can generate the following topics:
A topic for the BLETracker state:
<LOCATION>/<GATEWAY_NAME>/<BLE_ADDRESS>/LWT payload: <online|offline>
A single topic with the payload in JSON format containing all the items returned by the device (this is the default):
<LOCATION>/<GATEWAY_NAME>/<BLE_ADDRESS payload: { "state":<"on"|"off">,"rssi":<dBvalue>,"battery":<batterylevel>}
A topic for each item returned by the advertised device:
<LOCATION>/<GATEWAY_NAME>/<BLE_ADDRESS>/state payload: <"on"|"off">
<LOCATION>/<GATEWAY_NAME>/<BLE_ADDRESS>/rssi payload: <dBvalue>
<LOCATION>/<GATEWAY_NAME>/<BLE_ADDRESS>/battery payload: <batterylevel>
A topic with helpfull system information:
<LOCATION>/<GATEWAY_NAME>/<BLE_ADDRESS>/sysinfo, payload: { "uptime":<timesinceboot>,"version":<versionnumber>,"SSID":<WiFiSSID>,"IP":<ipnumber>}
A WEB server is integrated into the BLETracker, it can be accessed using a web browser and the ip or the network name of the tracker.
The WEB server can be used to see some system information and to update the firmware using an OTA Update, simply choosing the .bin file to upload.
Default credential to access the WEB Server are:
user: admin
password: admin
The new WEB server interface allow to customize the list of devices to be tracked, the scan period, and the MQTT broker parameters.
The new interface allows also to monitor some logs. The number of logs is limited and when the maximum capacity is reached the oldest are removed.
You can also enable manual scanning. You can start and stop scanning using the following API:
GET http://<device_ip>/scan?on=1
GET http://<device_ip>/scan?off=1
If properly configured the BLETracker can be integrate in your FHEM environment. Instead publishing MQTT tokens the BLETracker can be configured to act as a lepresenced daemon.
A server will run on the port 5333 listening for incoming connection generated by the collectord. The FHEM support and the MQTT support are mutually exclusive because of memory issues. The FHEM support can be easily enabled using Platform.io simply choosing the esp32dev-ble-fhem-release build variant.
The values of presence_timeout and absence_timeout stored in the collectord.conf cannot be less than or equal to the BLE_SCANNING_PERIOD (default is 10 seconds).
You can build this sketch using Arduino IDE (currently it's using arduino-esp32 v1.0.4), but be sure to install the required dependencies:
- You have to install the esp32 Board in Arduino IDE. You can find a tutorial following this link
- You have to install the library PubSubClient v2.8 (not needed if you want enable FHEM support)
- To enable the FHEM support you have to:
- install the Regexp library (https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/libraries/regexp/)
- set USE_MQTT to false and USE_FHEM_LEPRESENCE_SERVER to true in the config.h
- Because a bug in the BLE library provided by arduino-esp32 v1.0.4 you have to replace it with this one https://github.com/shogunxam/ESP32-BLE-Arduino.
Since the release v2.1 this one must be used https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/tree/6b0114366baf986c155e8173ab7c22bc0c5fcedc/libraries/BLE.
The libray to replace should be located in the folder ~/.arduino15/packages/esp32/hardware/esp32/x.x.x/libraries/BLE for Unix users and in C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\esp32\hardware\esp32\x.x.x\libraries\BLE for Windows users.
Build using the Minimal SPIFFS partition schema.
In order to understand the cause of the crash I need the backtrace returned by the firmware.
- First you have to build the firmware in debug mode, if you are using PlatformIo you can switch to the proper Project environment clicking on the env:<enviornemnt_name> button placed on the PlatformIo status bar.
- Flash the built firmware and open the console monitor.
- Execute the procedure causing the crash.
- When the crash occurs on the console you will see something like:
Backtrace: 0x4008505f:0x3ffbe350 0x401b9df5:0x3ffbe370 0x40019fb5:0x3ffbe390 0x40089692:0x3ffbe3c0 0x40088015:0x3ffbe400 0x40087d31:0x3ffbe420 0x4008a422:0x3ffbe440 0x4008b553:0x3ffbe460 0x400816e9:0x3ffbe480 0x401ba224:0x3ffe52a0 0x401ba7ed:0x3ffe52c0 0x4009008a:0x3ffe52f0
- Copy and paste this line in a file (i.e. backtrace.txt)
- Open a terminal, if you are using PlatformIo simply select bash from the Terminal window
- Run the
decoder.pyscript you find in the project (it needs you have installed Python 3, if you are using PlatformIo you are fine). Refer to EspArduinoExceptionDecoder for more information on the tool.
usage: decoder.py [-h] [-p {ESP8266,ESP32}] [-t TOOL] -e ELF [-f] [-s] file
decode ESP Stacktrace.
positional arguments:
file The file to read the exception data from ('-' for STDIN)
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-p {ESP8266,ESP32}, --platform {ESP8266,ESP32}
The platform to decode from
-t TOOL, --tool TOOL Path to the xtensa toolchain
-e ELF, --elf ELF path to elf file
-f, --full Print full stack dump
-s, --stack_only Decode only a stacktrace
so you have to write something like:
./decoder.py -p ESP32 -t ~/.platformio/packages/toolchain-xtensa32 -e .pio/build/esp32dev-ble-debug/firmware.elf ./backtrace.txt
- Open an issue giving as much as possible details you can and attach the output of the decoder.
| BLE Device | Discovery | Battery |
|---|---|---|
| Nut mini | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Nut2 | ✔️ | ❗ |
| Remote Shutter | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Xiomi Amazfit Bip | ✔️ | ❌ |
| REDMOND RFT-08S | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Xiomi Mi Smart Band 4 | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Fitness Band GT101 | ✔️ | ❌ |
This is a simple example of a package to manage a Nut Tracker device.
A more complex example combining more BLETrackers can be found inside the Doc folder.
###################################################
#Sensors
sensor:
- platform: mqtt
state_topic: 'home/BLETracker/XXXXXXXXXXXX'
name: 'bt_nut_upstairs_state'
value_template: "{{ value_json.state }}"
expire_after: 120
force_update: true
- platform: mqtt
state_topic: 'home/BLETracker/XXXXXXXXXXXX'
name: 'bt_nut_upstairs_battery'
value_template: "{{ value_json.battery }}"
force_update: true
###############################################
#Battery Sensor to resolve unknown/unavailable device state
- platform: template
sensors:
bt_nut_battery:
unit_of_measurement: '%'
value_template: >
{% if (is_state('sensor.bt_nut_upstairs_battery', 'unknown') or is_state('sensor.bt_nut_upstairs_battery', 'unavailable') or is_state('sensor.bt_nut_upstairs_battery', '-1')) %}
unknown
{% else %}
{{ states('sensor.bt_nut_upstairs_battery')|int }}
{% endif %}
icon_template: >
{% set battery_level = states('sensor.bt_nut_battery.state')|default(0)|int %}
{% set battery_round = (battery_level / 10) |int * 10 %}
{% if battery_round >= 100 %}
mdi:battery
{% elif battery_round > 0 %}
mdi:battery-{{ battery_round }}
{% else %}
mdi:battery-alert
{% endif %}
###############################################
#Binary Sensors to resolve unknown/unavailable device state
binary_sensor:
- platform: template
sensors:
ble_tracker_nut_mario:
friendly_name: 'ble_tracker_nut'
value_template: >
{% if (is_state('sensor.bt_nut_upstairs_state', 'unknown') or is_state('sensor.bt_nut_upstairs_state', 'unavailable') or is_state('sensor.bt_nut_upstairs_state', 'off')) %}
false
{% else %}
true
{% endif %}
device_class: presence
delay_off:
minutes: 1
#######################
#Check BLETracker state
- platform: mqtt
name: BLETracker_state
state_topic: 'home/BLETracker/LWT'
payload_on: "online"
payload_off: "offline"
device_class: "connectivity"
########################
#Automations
automation:
- id: notify_BLETracker_state
alias: Notify BLETracker offline
initial_state: true
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.BLETracker_state
to: 'off'
for:
minutes: 5
action:
- service: notify.telegram
data:
title: BLETracker
message: "BLETracker offline"
- id: notify_nut_battery
alias: Notify Battery low
initial_state: true
trigger:
- platform: template
value_template: >
{{ ((states('sensor.bt_nut_battery') | int ) <= 20 ) and ( is_state('sensor.bt_nut_battery', 'unknown') or is_state('sensor.bt_nut_battery', 'unavailable')) and ( states('sensor.bt_nut_battery') | int >= 0) }}
action:
- service: notify.telegram
data_template:
title: BLETracker
message: "Nut battery at {{states('sensor.bt_nut_battery')}}%"
Alternatively you can use the single topic returning the state in the following way:
- platform: mqtt
name: "bt_nut_upstairs_stat"
state_topic: "home/BLETracker/XXXXXXXXXXXX/state"
availability_topic: "home/BLETracker/LWT"
expire_after: 300
value_template: >-
{% if value == 'on' %}
home
{% elif value == 'off' %}
away
{% else %}
away
{% endif %}
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of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
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