Confused how bluetooth proxies work

[pale sun]

I have an ATOM Lite that I am using for my water meter. It shows up on the ESPHome Builder page, and works for what I have it programmed for. Is it not possible to use it as a bluetooth proxy as well? I tried adding another ATOM Lite to the ESPHome Builder page. It shows up, and pings, but it doesn't show its available as a bluetooth proxy.

Is the only way to get it to work, is to flash it through https://esphome.io/projects/ ? But then it no longer shows up in the ESPHome Builder page when you do that.

[pine bluff]

you dont add it a second time to add more functionality. you add the functionality to the code that is already there and assuming the esp32 has enough resources when you rebuild and install you are away

bluetooth proxy documentation from esphome is here - https://esphome.io/components/bluetooth_proxy.html
but if you want more info you are probably best moving over to the esphome discord

[vapid tangle]

I have these lines in all my ESPHome bt proxies, from Bermuda docs -

esp32_ble_tracker:
  scan_parameters:
    active: True # Whether to send scan-request packets to devices to gather more info (like devicename)
    interval: 320ms # suggested 211ms # default 320ms
    window:   200ms # suggested 120ms # default 30ms

bluetooth_proxy:
  active: true  # allows outbound connections from HA to devices.

bluetooth_proxy: line is all that is needed technically, everything else is tweaking settings

[pale sun]

I will check that out. I was confused because when I flash it with the website, it works as a proxy, but then you can't add it to the dashboard.

[pine bluff]

if you flash it as a bluetooth proxy then its ONLY a bluetooth proxy. but you can switch on bluetooth proxy in other firmware

[pale sun]

Ok I guess that's where I was initially confused. So if I just add it to the dashboard manually then I have to write and define what packages I want to run on it?

[pine bluff]

esphome firmware is configured by a yaml file. the base firmwares you can flash have a really basic one built in to do a specific job.
you can start with one of those, take control of it and add addition things to the yaml and reinstall the new firmware with its new configuration

[pale sun]

Alright.

So I guess that means I can run multiple packages if there's room on the device? Aka my water meter could be a proxy if there's room. I would just need to figure out how to check that.

[pine bluff]

yup

bluetooth proxy can use quite a bit of memory but if your not doing anything too complicated then you can probably run it alongside stuff

[pale sun]

Yeah that website has a button specifically for the ATOM lite. But then it didn't show up on the dashboard, but what you said makes sense why.

[pine bluff]

now you know sort of what to look for and how it works can probably find some videos on the subject

sometimes you need to know a little about what you dont know

[pale sun]

I have 2 other proxies that are bigger boards with antennas, but I set those up a good while ago and they were in the dashboard. So I must have followed some tutorial somewhere in my early days of using HA and just don't remember that.

[pine bluff]

gotcha

[pale sun]

That's why I was confused why some stuff was on the dashboard and others not

[pine bluff]

btw for more detailed info about having device to multiple things you are probably better off investigating on the esphome discord

[pale sun]

Yeah I'll check that out next. I might not screw with my water meter and overwork it.