How to find visible bluetooth devices in Python?

Question

I need to find the list of visible Bluetooth devices with their respective details in the range of my Bluetooth modem. I only need to do Bluetooth 2.0 and below. I don't need to do Bluetooth 4.0.

Like you do on an Android phones using "Search for devices".

I'm sorry I can't give any code I tried because I don't know how to do Bluetooth with python.

What platform are you wanting to do this on? Android? Linux? Something else? — Katie Kilian, Jan 08 '14 at 21:18
@CharlieKilian I'd like to be able do it on both Linux and Windows. — Ufoguy, Jan 09 '14 at 05:00

score 18 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 28 '18 at 09:08

18

PyBluez:

from bluetooth import *

print "performing inquiry..."

nearby_devices = discover_devices(lookup_names = True)

print "found %d devices" % len(nearby_devices)

for name, addr in nearby_devices:
     print " %s - %s" % (addr, name)

See also Programming Bluetooth using Python

The important thing is you can use lookup_names = True

from bluez Docs:

if lookup_names is False, returns a list of bluetooth addresses.
if lookup_names is True, returns a list of (address, name) tuples

edited Jul 28 '18 at 09:08

lvc

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answered Jan 08 '14 at 16:10

Kobi K

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prebuilt for windows: https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#pybluez – jonincanada Jan 20 '19 at 21:48
PyBluez seems to be deprecated, it is not possible to install it anymore in Python 3.10 on Windows – Anderas Jan 02 '23 at 14:16

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 08 '14 at 16:09

3

You can use PyBluez:

import bluetooth

nearby_devices = bluetooth.discover_devices()

answered Jan 08 '14 at 16:09

zero_dev

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Can you post example of the output it gives? – Ufoguy Jan 08 '14 at 16:12

How to find visible bluetooth devices in Python?

2 Answers2