ibeacon keeps adding New Devices even if it's configured not to do so

[arigit]

The problem

This integration provides in its System Options a configuration flag called "Enable Newly added entities" (described as: "if newly discovered devices for ibeacon tracker should be automatically added").

I have set this to No (after having added my 3 ibeacons).

Even so, every day, I find 2 or 3 new ibeacons that get added automatically and are not mine (I don't have iphones or any apple device at home).

I use remote "BLE proxies", ESPHome devices one of which is in my garage and and I know it is able to pick up BLE transmissions from people passing by or neighbors, that is why I need to prevent iBeacon to add any new device or entity. However, ibeacon seems to ignore the flag and is adding devices and entities to my install regardless. After 3-4 months of use, it added a few hundred "ghost devices" each with 5 entities, and these can only be removed manually from the registry files (the GUI is not able to delete them), so this is highly annoying.

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

2023.2.4

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

None

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant Container

Integration causing the issue

ibeacon

Link to integration documentation on our website

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ibeacon/

Diagnostics information

Nothing specific to share here. There is no way to stop ibeacon to keep discovering and adding beacons and entities

Example YAML snippet

No response

Anything in the logs that might be useful for us?

No response

Additional information

No response

[home-assistant[bot]]

Hey there @bdraco, mind taking a look at this issue as it has been labeled with an integration (ibeacon) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

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[arigit]

There are multiple ppl complaining about this issue, it's been going on for a while, not sure why it wasn't reported here, https://community.home-assistant.io/t/ibeacon-integration-keeps-adding-devices-even-if-it-is-configured-not-to-add-new-devices/534736/3

[bkvargyas]

I've been seeing this issue for a while as well, I get about 5-6 entries a day from a single device. I've disabled adding new entries, but it still persists. Using ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy on a Olimux PoE device. Latest ESPHome and 2023.4.1 Home Assistant

[robchandhok]

I noticed in 2023.4.x (i'm on .2 now) the "add new entries" was reset to "on". Noticed new devices being added, so had to delete the integration and start over. FWIW.

[disconn3ct]

I also have only 2 or 3 devices.. (updated because 200 new devices showed in the past 4 weeks)

[MichaelStruck]

This is on-going for me as well and wanted to track it by adding a comment. As with everyone else, even though this is clearly marked NOT to add new devices, they keep popping up. I am curious if it has to do with the theory that even existing devices are technically new devices if the appendix of the iBeacon (the last few digits) is always different, therefore for this to work properly you can't just limit this to existing devices. If that is the case, there should be some internal evaluation of the first section of the ibeacon, and then only allow it if it is already existing. Just my theory.

[rlust]

Do we have any progress on a solution? same issue here.

[ScottG489]

So the description says it shouldn't add new devices, but the name of the setting "Enable newly added entities" indicates that maybe it's still adding the devices, but then just disabling all that devices entities?

This has become a little more than an annoyance for me because it causes some nodes in Node Red to be really slow to open. I'm sure it's also not great for system performance.

Also, does anyone know of a way to mass-delete devices or entities?

[ScottG489]

I did some testing with another integration (steam_online) and the behavior seemed to be that with "Enable newly added entities" disabled it still adds the entity, but with that entity disabled. I assume if a new devices is also normally added (not the case with steam_online so I can't confirm) then that device is also still added, but I don't think the device will be disabled.

I don't think this setting actually has anything to do with devices. If you look at the original frontend PR where this was added, the word "device" isn't actually used in the description. So I assume something was lost in translation whenever that was updated.

Update: Found where the wording was changed to "device", though no explanation as to why: https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/pull/9316/commits/29b697cc0852965117a8ab79313a1986aa0c9d08#diff-e67939fd25c650222db710f18764d10ae69454b0e8ad680f5e10177c2db93ceaR762

[ScottG489]

Spoke with a maintainer (bdraco) and he suggested the proper fix for this would be another system option (or augment the existing one) to get this desired behavior.

[KameDomotics]

I have this problem too, I have many ibeacon devices not mine which are automatically detected by the system. Is there anything new to fix this issue? Thanks

[bcutter]

Even more confused people: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/mystery-ibeacon-tracker/471704

What about another "do not automatically add devices to the integration" system option? Once one set up their devices, enable this and the collection of foreign devices is over.

For this integration it would be better being able to manually add devices. Then it would be an active task, no more drive-by surprises. I mean really, drive-by.

[renini]

Anyone with a workaround for this?

[bcutter]

I was meanwhile told it is illegal in some countries (e. g. the one I live in) to scan for foreign (bluetooth) devices. Separate projects like OpenMQTTGateway (OMG) for example have a whitelist/blacklist approach to fulfil this legal requirement.

At the same time, our iBeacon integrations constantly scan and collect all the crap out there. Interesting. Really interesting.

[bschatzow]

How do you remove the ghost devices? I have over 500.

[bkvargyas]

I ended up removing the iBeacon integration. A whitelist would have resolved it while ignoring all the other noise. I suspect it's low priority in fixing at this point in time.

[hannemann]

I ended up removing the iBeacon integration. A whitelist would have resolved it while ignoring all the other noise. I suspect it's low priority in fixing at this point in time.

How did you do that?

[issue-triage-workflows[bot]]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates. Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍 This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[bcutter]

https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/88111#issuecomment-1841688323

[KameDomotics]

Are there any updates on this issue? is it really that impossible to fix this problem or create a whitelist? Thank you

[issue-triage-workflows[bot]]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates. Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍 This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[bcutter]

Are there any updates on this issue? is it really that impossible to fix this problem or create a whitelist? Thank you

Double that.

[elvenstof]

I am also still struggling with this problem.

[codahq]

@bdraco any help here?

[ScottG489]

Don't ping people directly like that. I also already mentioned above that I spoke with him and what his response was.

[codahq]

He's the maintainer. He's hasn't spoken in the issue. It's been open for coming up on two years. I think it's warranted.

[issue-triage-workflows[bot]]

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates. Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍 This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[bcutter]

Let's play the unstale game like forever.

...until a mighty hero comes around the corner and fixes this.

As mentioned already in theory running this integration - how it works currently - is illegal in some countries.

[KameDomotics]

I don't use this integration for many months, because I had hundreds of devices that weren't mine that were automatically added.

[disconn3ct]

Don't ping people directly like that. I also already mentioned above that I spoke with him and what his response was.

@bdraco @ScottG489 if you turn off stalebot, we will stop asking you to show up on time. The project installed a robot that enforces a clock. We are just asking you to honor your end of that "agreement" and either disable the robot on this verified bug, or be active during what your robot considers to be a reasonable amount of time.