blea2mqtt

Send BLE sensors data to MQTT

Why transmit this to mqtt?

• We may need several bluetooth radios to get decent coverage, as BLE is not a mesh network.
• We decode the data locally, to save on data sent to mqtt. There are a lot more devices that may broadcast BLE signals and this is a problem if you live in an apartment.

A service to read Bluetooth low energy sensors in nodejs.

Requirements

• nodejs v12+ (brew install node or using nvm)
• yarn (npm i -g yarn)
• a Bluetooth modem capable of BLE

Devices tested & working with this project

• LYWSDCGQ Mi Thermohygrometer, powered by 1xAAA
• HHCCJCY01 Mi Flora, also available from a lot of other brands, powered by 1xCR2032
• CGDK2, a newer version of the Mi Thermohygrometer, powered by 1xCR2430
  • For this device to broadcast useful data, a pair to the official Qingping+ app was needed

Getting started

Before running this, keep in mind that this was tested with ubuntu and macOS in mind.

To run this in macOS (Prior to Monterey):

Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy (tab) > Bluetooth and add your terminal of choice to the list of allowed apps.

To run this in ubuntu/other gnu/linux distro:

./setup.sh

First, configure your mqtt server

cp .env.example .env
vim .env

There are a few things to configure in the .env file:

Variable	Description
MQTT_HOSTNAME	Mqtt server location
MQTT_USERNAME	Mqtt server user
MQTT_PASSWORD	Mqtt server password for the given user
MQTT_TOPIC	Mqtt topic to publish information
MACHINE_NAME	Name your data collection node
BLE_DEBUG	Shows extra data (all ble broadcasts)

To install dependencies run the service, just:

yarn && yarn start

Project wishlist

• Docker image

• Docker Compose with full example

• Prometheus exporter