Lock BLE API

[AdyRock]

Current Situation

There is no BLE API documentation for the lock API except for the device id

Proposed Change

Add documentation for the Lock BLE API

Additional Context

It is desirable to integrate the lock into other home automation systems.

[Jacksonbm1]

I also think this would be a nice feature and probably shouldn't be closed as the BLE fix isn't available yet. I understand that it's not possible yet, but the issue shouldn't be closed IMO.

[kaxio]

Hey team, any updates on this?

[Jacksonbm1]

I saw a post in a live chat with a cofounder of switchbot that said the ble lock api is coming:

Here's the op:

"Hey. It's Richard here. I am one of the cofounders of
this little robot SwitchBot. I am more on sales and
marketing, but i also know how to code and play
around with JavaScript and Python myself. I have
around 160+ connected device, 20-30 scenes/
routines/automations or whatever you call it at my
place and most of them are in use, which means I
kinda know what smart home is. Also I use Alexa
most of the time at home and Siri when I am on my
phone. Just wanna say hi and if you guys have
anything you wanna tell me, just let me know. Would
like to interact with you guys more from now on. In
case i missed you comments, pin me again. I am
also on Twitter in case you wanna talk there too.
https://twitter.com/richardmou63/"

Here's the reply that says the lock api is coming:

"1. Lock API is definitely on its way. We gotta
test the security level before releasing and
there is no ETA yet."

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrySwitchBot/comments/vzr3y6/first_post_hello_world/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

[brandon-dacrib]

I don't understand. Why was this issue closed even though there is still no documentation on using the switchbot lock via BLE?

[Jacksonbm1]

It's listed as open for me? But I believe comments may re open it. Pretty sure GitHub auto closes issues that don't get updates and go stale

[martindinicolino]

with V1.1 of the API dropping about a week ago and bringing back the lock and unlock capability to the webAPI (which is awesome, thank you very much for that), is there any timetable in regards to this functionality being added to the bleAPI?

[Jacksonbm1]

Best way I can find is to message Richard Mou on twitter. He responds quickly

[r-glebov]

Looking forward for the BLE API support!

[martindinicolino]

Best way I can find is to message Richard Mou on twitter. He responds quickly

i‘m not on twitter, could somebody do that please?

[Minsheng]

Current Situation

There is no BLE API documentation for the lock API except for the device id

Proposed Change

Add documentation for the Lock BLE API

Additional Context

It is desirable to integrate the lock into other home automation systems.

This is Davidson from the dev team. We are working on the BLE API and we will update the BLE API doc hopefully in the next month. I myself will oversee the progress and keep you posted. Thanks a lot for being patient and supportive! You guys are the best!

[Jacksonbm1]

This is Davidson from the dev team. We are working on the BLE API and we will update the BLE API doc hopefully in the next month. I myself will oversee the progress and keep you posted. Thanks a lot for being patient and supportive! You guys are the best!

This is fantastic news! Out of curiosity, what features will the api include?

• ability to lock/unlock
• ability to read state of lock
• ability to read state of door
• ability to read state of battery

Best

[Minsheng]

This is Davidson from the dev team. We are working on the BLE API and we will update the BLE API doc hopefully in the next month. I myself will oversee the progress and keep you posted. Thanks a lot for being patient and supportive! You guys are the best!

This is fantastic news! Out of curiosity, what features will the api include?

• ability to lock/unlock
• ability to read state of lock
• ability to read state of door
• ability to read state of battery

Best

We plan to support these triggers first,

• ability to read state of lock
• ability to read state of door
• ability to read state of battery

The actions will have to come after.

Davidson

[marcomow]

awesome! @Minsheng do you have an estimated timeline for both reading and actions? Asking as our company is deciding which product to choose, so it may be worth to wait, but we need to understand how long. Thank you!

[sonny-chen]

This is fantastic news! Out of curiosity, what features will the api include?

• ability to lock/unlock
• ability to read state of lock
• ability to read state of door
• ability to read state of battery

Please also add the ability to set PIN. This will create a huge use case for vacation homes.

[Minsheng]

awesome! @Minsheng do you have an estimated timeline for both reading and actions? Asking as our company is deciding which product to choose, so it may be worth to wait, but we need to understand how long. Thank you!

We have released the broadcast definition for Lock. The pull request is being reviewed atm.
We don't have a timeline for the implementation of Lock actions yet. Please stay tuned.

[martindinicolino]

great job, thank you for your work!
patiently waiting for the ability to lock and unlock to be added to the BLE API though 🤞

[federicotravaini]

Just goona buy in advance the lock waiting for this integration to be live asap 😃

[advorsky73]

Happy New Year ;) Any updates?

[donavanbecker]

@advorsky73 check this repo out: https://github.com/Danielhiversen/pySwitchbot

[advorsky73]

@donavanbecker thats for cloud api, how does this help for BLE ??? 🤔

[donavanbecker]

@advorsky73 pretty sure this is all BLE: https://github.com/dsypniewski/pySwitchbot/blob/ed46ac93e2c8985037e21f31e4bb7b933e17714f/switchbot/devices/lock.py

From this PR: sblibs/pySwitchbot#164

[slight316]

@dsypniewski I find myself with a little bit of spare time. Is there anyway that I can help with reverse engineering the keypad functionality? I don't have much experience in this department but if you can send me towards some articles or something I'm eager to learn.

[dsypniewski]

@slight316 As to sniffing bluetooth traffic I can recommend series of videos mentioned here https://hackaday.com/2021/03/23/a-crash-course-on-sniffing-bluetooth-low-energy/
This requires a dongle that allows sniffing Bluetooth - you can usually buy one pretty cheap on sites like AliExpress but I didn't want to wait so I made mine from nRF52840 dongle flashed with this https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-Sniffer-for-Bluetooth-LE
What also helped a lot was looking through decompiled java code and string resources of the Android SwitchBot app, this article https://medium.com/helpshift-engineering/reverse-engineer-your-favorite-android-app-863a797042a6 seems to be using similar set of tools that I was using except the last step where I use fernflower.

@donavanbecker I pushed an update to the branch mentioned earlier that adds support for macOS and Windows could you check it out?
This might require updating python3 to newer version because I had some problems with the default version provided by macOS.

[KiraPC]

@slight316 As to sniffing bluetooth traffic I can recommend series of videos mentioned here https://hackaday.com/2021/03/23/a-crash-course-on-sniffing-bluetooth-low-energy/ This requires a dongle that allows sniffing Bluetooth - you can usually buy one pretty cheap on sites like AliExpress but I didn't want to wait so I made mine from nRF52840 dongle flashed with this https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-Sniffer-for-Bluetooth-LE What also helped a lot was looking through decompiled java code and string resources of the Android SwitchBot app, this article https://medium.com/helpshift-engineering/reverse-engineer-your-favorite-android-app-863a797042a6 seems to be using similar set of tools that I was using except the last step where I use fernflower.

@donavanbecker I pushed an update to the branch mentioned earlier that adds support for macOS and Windows could you check it out? This might require updating python3 to newer version because I had some problems with the default version provided by macOS.

Hello @dsypniewski I'm trying to test the script on my mac, do I have to install the URL handler? because chrome can't found it.

[dsypniewski]

@KiraPC while running the script it should create an app that handles those authentication URLs and removes it after the script exits. While the script is running you can check in the /Applications directory there should be switchbot URL handler.app.

[KiraPC]

Yes, I did a little bit of reverse engineering and found. Anyway it doesn’t want works. I also tried to pack an app with py2app that listen on url as yours. It works if I call the app directly from the browser typing switchbot:// and works (I also started a listener for debugging) but not when is cognito to call the app. Could you help me? EDIT: after another test (whiteout changing anything) it worked. Anyway you need to fix the creation of the app because like as it now, it doesn't work

[donavanbecker]

@donavanbecker I pushed an update to the branch mentioned earlier that adds support for macOS and Windows could you check it out? This might require updating python3 to newer version because I had some problems with the default version provided by macOS.

Sorry @dsypniewski, been busy. sorry for not knowing much about python. Want to learn more about it, but how do I run the script? I have the zip downloaded and I tried to execute it using python3 switchbot_get_lock_key.py --web-auth XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

but then I receive this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/xxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxxx/pySwitchbot-lock-key-script-web-auth/scripts/switchbot_get_lock_key.py", line 6, in <module>
    import requests
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'requests'

[dsypniewski]

@KiraPC Do you have any ideas on how this could be improved? This is my first time working with an app for Mac.

@donavanbecker Sorry for the delay but I've also been busy recently - the script is not standalone and needs the pySwitchbot and other libraries installed to work so you need to install the package using pip:

pip install git+https://github.com/dsypniewski/pySwitchbot.git@lock-key-script-web-auth

If pip is not found or not working you might need to use pip3 instead.
This will also install the script as executable, so there should be no need to use the downloaded one.

[donavanbecker]

No problems! and thanks @dsypniewski. I just get stuck here and receive this error when opening up the handler

Registering switchbot:// url handler
Opening auth page
Waiting for the auth response.

[dsypniewski]

@donavanbecker Hmm, this error message is not very helpful but there was one thing that I could think of and I pushed an update, could you check if that fixes your problem?

[KiraPC]

@donavanbecker Hmm, this error message is not very helpful but there was one thing that I could think of and I pushed an update, could you check if that fixes your problem?

This was the same error i had.

I pushed here the standalone application to be installed manually.

Try it and let me now.

@KiraPC Do you have any ideas on how this could be improved? This is my first time working with an app for Mac.

@dsypniewski Check my repository. The code is basically equals to yours, but it is standalone.

[donavanbecker]

@KiraPC when I run the commands, I get this:

The 'rumps' distribution was not found and is required by the application

[KiraPC]

@KiraPC when I run the commands, I get this:

The 'rumps' distribution was not found and is required by the application

Damn!

I stared from an old project, and I forget to remove a dependecy.

In setup.py file remove the "install_requires" line and check again if it compile.

I'm from my smartphone, tomorrow I'll fix on the repo.

[donavanbecker]

still getting:

ImportError: No module named 'rumps'

No rush, I can wait till tomorrow.

[KiraPC]

still getting:

ImportError: No module named 'rumps'

No rush, I can wait till tomorrow.

Mmm, I'll test it on a virtual environment tomorrow.

[dsypniewski]

@donavanbecker how about changes in my branch I mentioned earlier, does that work for you?

[KiraPC]

@donavanbecker fixed it. Should work now!

[federicotravaini]

Sorry to interrupt your conversation but maybe you can help with this related issue: home-assistant/home-assistant.io#25859

[KiraPC]

Sorry to interrupt your conversation but maybe you can help with this related issue: home-assistant/home-assistant.io#25859

Hello @federicotravaini I'm using the switchbot Lock too. It's working fine.

I read the 3rd you posted and seems strange.

Could you report your system? Are you using a BLE adapter?

[federicotravaini]

Sorry to interrupt your conversation but maybe you can help with this related issue: home-assistant/home-assistant.io#25859

Hello @federicotravaini I'm using the switchbot Lock too. It's working fine.

I read the 3rd you posted and seems strange.

Could you report your system? Are you using a BLE adapter?

I am running HA in a VM on a Synology NAS DS920+.
I have a BT usb adapter in the NAS that is in the basement (out of range) and an ESP32 bt proxy in the house, and a Shelly Plus with BT enabled (active mode). Everything works fine unless the BT lock that most of the times is not updated. Also, sometimes they became unavailable randomly and dont get back until I reload the switchbot integration.

I also had a switchbot HUB that I powered off and now back on cause didn't impact on the behaviour of the integration.

Will provide all the information you need.

[KiraPC]

Sorry to interrupt your conversation but maybe you can help with this related issue: home-assistant/home-assistant.io#25859

Hello @federicotravaini I'm using the switchbot Lock too. It's working fine.
I read the 3rd you posted and seems strange.
Could you report your system? Are you using a BLE adapter?

I am running HA in a VM on a Synology NAS DS920+. I have a BT usb adapter in the NAS that is in the basement (out of range) and an ESP32 bt proxy in the house, and a Shelly Plus with BT enabled (active mode). Everything works fine unless the BT lock that most of the times is not updated. Also, sometimes they became unavailable randomly and dont get back until I reload the switchbot integration.

I also had a switchbot HUB that I powered off and now back on cause didn't impact on the behaviour of the integration.

Will provide all the information you need.

Mmm. What firmware version is installed on the lock?

[federicotravaini]

Pretty sure it's the latest one, I checked a couple of days ago. Now I not at home and I can't check since it requires BT connection.

[KiraPC]

Pretty sure it's the latest one, I checked a couple of days ago. Now I not at home and I can't check since it requires BT connection.

It is not so sure.

The firmware is not delivered to all users togethers.

If you don't have the v6.5, ask to the support, they will send you it.

[federicotravaini]

Will check for sure tonight and let you know.

Now I am also using the web API to retrieve the door status (via the hub) and they work fine.

It's really weird, I hope it's not related to the ESP32...

[KiraPC]

Will check for sure tonight and let you know.

Now I am also using the web API to retrieve the door status (via the hub) and they work fine.

It's really weird, I hope it's not related to the ESP32...

I'm using a respberrypi 4pi with a usb doongle CSR and it works fine.

[federicotravaini]

Pretty sure it's the latest one, I checked a couple of days ago. Now I not at home and I can't check since it requires BT connection.

It is not so sure.

The firmware is not delivered to all users togethers.

If you don't have the v6.5, ask to the support, they will send you it.

I have version 6.4 holy moly
No update available
Will ask support...

[KiraPC]

Pretty sure it's the latest one, I checked a couple of days ago. Now I not at home and I can't check since it requires BT connection.

It is not so sure.

The firmware is not delivered to all users togethers.

If you don't have the v6.5, ask to the support, they will send you it.

I have version 6.4 holy moly
No update available
Will ask support...

Yes, ask for the V6.5. it should fix the sends update status.

Comunque, italiano anche io! 😂

[federicotravaini]

Pretty sure it's the latest one, I checked a couple of days ago. Now I not at home and I can't check since it requires BT connection.

It is not so sure.

The firmware is not delivered to all users togethers.

If you don't have the v6.5, ask to the support, they will send you it.

I have version 6.4 holy moly
No update available
Will ask support...

Yes, ask for the V6.5. it should fix the sends update status.

Comunque, italiano anche io! 😂

Ahah ottimo!

When I update I'll let you know if it fixed

[donavanbecker]

@KiraPC, yours worked.

@dsypniewski, yours worked when I used @KiraPC "switchbot.app" in the Applications Folder, but when I deleted that and tried again with the switchbot Url handler it didn't work and got the same error.

FYI: I did have to right click and Open the "switchbot.app" before @dsypniewski script would recognize that it is installed.

[KiraPC]

@KiraPC, yours worked.

Great!. You could think to link the repository and install the macos app externally.

[federicotravaini]

Pretty sure it's the latest one, I checked a couple of days ago. Now I not at home and I can't check since it requires BT connection.

It is not so sure.
The firmware is not delivered to all users togethers.
If you don't have the v6.5, ask to the support, they will send you it.

I have version 6.4 holy moly
No update available
Will ask support...

Yes, ask for the V6.5. it should fix the sends update status.

Comunque, italiano anche io! 😂

After a couple of days with V6.5 I can confirm it works way better than before. Still happens sometimes that the device goes offline and I just need to reload the integration.

Grazie per la dritta!