26

I'm trying to get a list of connected Bluetooth devices via the command line on Kubuntu.

When I launch bluetoothctl, it defaults to the latest connected device, and I need to disconnect it to display the other one.

Is there a way to list the connected Bluetooth devices?

Matthias Braun
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Tiwenty
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6 Answers6

18

Here's a fish-shell one-liner (see below for bash)

bluetoothctl devices | cut -f2 -d' ' | while read uuid; bluetoothctl info $uuid; end|grep -e "Device\|Connected\|Name"

bash one-liner:

bluetoothctl devices | cut -f2 -d' ' | while read uuid; do bluetoothctl info $uuid; done|grep -e "Device\|Connected\|Name"
Lincoln
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niveau0
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7

You can list paired devices with bluetoothctl paired-devices

From this list you can get info for each device with bluetoothctl info On the info you have the Connected status.

So loop on each devices grep for Connected: yes if so display the name:

bluetoothctl paired-devices | cut -f2 -d' '|
while read -r uuid
do
    info=`bluetoothctl info $uuid`
    if echo "$info" | grep -q "Connected: yes"; then
       echo "$info" | grep "Name"
    fi
done
Ôrel
  • 171
6

As of bluez/bluetoothctl 5.65 (bluetoothctl --version), we can use bluetoothctl devices Connected (Capitalized C) to list connected bluetooth devices. For example:

$ bluetoothctl devices Connected
Device AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF MY-DEVICE-NAME

If you care about paired devices, use bluetoothctl devices Paired for bluez/bluetoothctl version >= 5.65, or bluetoothctl paired-devices for bluez/bluetoothctl < 5.65.

Xiangkun
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3

This may help: sudo bluetoothctl info MAC-ADDRESS-OF-DEVICE

Gwenn
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Hien Nguyen
  • 31
2

I use this to display the currently connected device in my Swaybar:

bluetoothctl devices | cut -f2 -d' ' | while read uuid; do bluetoothctl info $uuid; done | grep -e "Name\|Connected: yes" | grep -B1 "yes" | head -n 1 | cut -d\  -f2-

Breakdown:

bluetoothctl devices
# List all devices

cut -f2 -d' '


Cut out the second column containing the MAC address


while read uuid; do bluetoothctl info $uuid; done


For each MAC address call bluetoothctl info


grep -e "Name|Connected: yes"


Find all lines that have either name or Connected: yes


grep -B1 "yes"


Find the line with yes and the line before that line


head -n 1


Return the last line


cut -d\  -f2-


Return the second column and all other columns for the device name
Konrad Reiche
  • 121
1

After running sudo bluetoothctl...

you can type paired-devices to see a list of paired devices
or list to see a list of currently connected controllers

you can also type info to see info about each device.

Each command here supports tab completion of MAC addresses.

Casey Jones
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9 Guy
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