balenaOS optimized bluetooth agent. Easiest way to add bluetooth pairing to your projects!

The bluetooth block is a Docker image that runs a pre-configured bluetooth pairing agent, some of it's features are:

• Handle bluetooth pairing and connection with other devices
• Support for any bluetooth interface (built-in or USB)
• Uses DBus to communicate with balenaOS bluetooth daemon
• Reconnect on boot to known and trusted devices

Note that this block does not deal with the bluetooth "data layer". Your application will need to handle the data stream corresponding to the desired bluetooth profile. For example, the audio block takes an already paired and connected bluetooth device and sets it up as an A2DP audio source.

To use this image, create a container in your docker-compose.yml file as shown below:

version: '2'

services:

  bluetooth:
    image: balenablocks/bluetooth:raspberrypi4-64  # See supported devices for other archs
    network_mode: host
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    restart: on-failure
    labels:
      io.balena.features.dbus: 1

  my-bluetooth-app:
    build: ./my-bluetooth-app

You can extend the bluetooth block to include custom configuration as you would with any other Dockerfile. Just make sure you don't override the ENTRYPOINT as it contains important system configuration.

Here are some of the most common extension cases:

• Start the bluetooth daemon from your own bash script:

FROM balenablocks/bluetooth:%%BALENA_MACHINE_NAME%%

# Be sure to run exec /usr/src/bluetooth-agent in your script
COPY start.sh /usr/src/start.sh
CMD [ "/bin/bash", "/usr/src/start.sh" ]

The following environment variables allow some degree of configuration:

The bluetooth block has been tested to work on the following devices:

*: Requires external USB bluetooth dongle