How to make Bluetooth accessible for Docker containers (ex Home Assistant) ?

Hi,

I've added docker and some containers on my LibreElec setup (Rpi4). Now I would like to give Home Assistant access to built in Rpi4 Bluetooth. But I can't figure out how to do that. I think some things differs on Libreelec compared to a normal debian system to achieve that.

I've read https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/bluetooth/ , and according to the instructions, there should be Dbus and BlueZ installed. I can find a /run/dbus device, that I've made accessible to the docker container using a bind mount. But home assistant still is unable to scan for bluetooth devices. I'm not sure if it's because BlueZ is missing, or any other problem. Could someone read the documentation above and try to help me to achieve this ? I don't know what to try next.

Home Assistant give me the following error when trying to scan :

2023-03-22 21:28:27.222 ERROR (MainThread) [frontend.js.latest.202303091] :0:0 ResizeObserver loop completed with undelivered notifications.
2023-03-22 21:28:41.254 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant] Error doing job: Future exception was never retrieved
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/dbus_fast/aio/message_bus.py", line 214, in on_hello
    raise err
  File "src/dbus_fast/aio/message_reader.py", line 24, in dbus_fast.aio.message_reader.build_message_reader._message_reader
  File "src/dbus_fast/_private/unmarshaller.py", line 659, in dbus_fast._private.unmarshaller.Unmarshaller._unmarshall
  File "src/dbus_fast/_private/unmarshaller.py", line 533, in dbus_fast._private.unmarshaller.Unmarshaller._read_header
  File "src/dbus_fast/_private/unmarshaller.py", line 283, in dbus_fast._private.unmarshaller.Unmarshaller._read_to_pos

Do you have an idea ? Any answer is welcome

Have a great day

Hi, would someone have an idea about how I could do this ? Thanks in advance

Hi, would someone have an idea please?

Quote from petediscrete

Ask on the Home Assistant forum.

Hi, thanks for your answer.

I did already, they told me to ask here. Which I find logical as the problem is more with how Libreelec handles bluetooth rather than with home assistant itself. If you can help me to find what device Libreelec uses for bluetooth, then it should be easy to mount it on docker.

EDIT : I tried to search for both the integrated bluetooth, as well as for the bluetooth dongle that I've connected. None of them seem to be visible in /dev. I don't see any new device appearing in /dev when plugging the dongle, even with it being found that I use lsusb.

Thanks in advance for any answer, have a good day.

Quote from Pretoriano

Hi,i'm using LibreELEC 11 + Docker + HA on Rpi4 8GB and when i run "hcitool dev" in HA container's terminal,it shows the RPi4's internal bluetooth ,so no idea why it fails for you.

I will try to pair a device with it and check if Homeassistant can find it,so i will let you know .

P.S. Docker + Home Assistant (and other 12 containers like SWAG,AdGuard Home ,Zigbee2mqtt ,MQTT ,eyc) runs very well on Rpi4 .

Very interesting ! That's exactly what I'm trying to do. Could you tell me what device you mounted inside your container ? What paths ? How is your HA container and service configuration ?

Quote from Pretoriano

I'm using docker-compose here ,but here's a snippet from the "docker-compose.yaml" file :

Code

homeassistant:
    image: homeassistant/raspberrypi4-homeassistant:stable
    container_name: homeassistant
    hostname: hassio
    network_mode: "host"
    restart: always
    depends_on:
      - adguardhome
      - mosquitto
      - zigbee2mqtt
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/Rome
    volumes:
      - /run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - /storage/.config/dockers/hass-config:/config

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With this configuration ,the RPi4's internal bluetooth is automatically detected in HA (check the attached screenshot ).

Thanks a lot for your answer. That's strange, when I use "bluetoothctl list" I correctly have LibreELEC bluetooth listed from within HA container, but when I use "hcitool dev", I don't have any device appearing. I don't know what I'm missing.

Quote from Pretoriano

LeVraiRoiDHyrule which LibreELEC version you are using (i'm using LE11 here)?

Also which HA container image ?

Alternatively ,you could use esphome bluetooth proxy ,installed on esp32 dev module (already tested here and working ).

Hi, sorry for the late reply. I'm using LE11 too. My container image is from LinuxServer.io. I discovered that if I run the container as my root user, I can correctly add the Bluetooth adapter in HA. But not device is being discovered, even if they are found using bluetoothctl scan on, HA doesn't seem to see any. Hcitool dev still finds no device. I don't know what to do. Here is my Docker compose config :

homeassistant:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/homeassistant:latest
    container_name: homeassistant
    #network_mode: host
    networks:
      - services
    #security_opt:
    #  - no-new-privileges:true
    environment:
      - PUID=0
      - PGID=0
      - TZ=${TZ}
    volumes:
      - ${CONFIG_FOLDER}/homeassistant:/config
      - /run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro
    #ports:
    #  - 8123:8123 #optional
    devices:
      - /dev/ttyAMA0:/dev/ttyAMA0
    restart: unless-stopped
    labels:
      caddy: homeassistant.mydomain.com
      caddy.reverse_proxy: homeassistant:8123

I am running in bridge mode and not host mode, I was told this doesn't interfere with Bluetooth.