Use Tile trackers

[MarkAtwood]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Be able to use Tile trackers

Describe the solution you'd like

Tile trackers are widely used and often already installed in people wallets, on keyrings, and on pets.

It would be be useful if bermuda was able to use them.

The Tile BLE protocol is not offically documented, but it has been reverse engineered, and a JS implementation is available at
https://github.com/lesleyxyz/node-tile

The user would have to either provide their tile login information, or would have to run some script with their tile login information, to get the authkeys and uuids for the Tile devices in their account.

Describe alternatives you've considered
I could buy new ble trackers, but I've already significantly invested in TIle devices.

[nkhdk]

I added a Tile Mate just by finding its Bluetooth mac address, so it should already work, mine does (no logins, authkeys and so on).

[Lash-L]

Hi! I added support for tiles via a naming update i did.

What more does using the ble protocol give us that you're looking for?

[agittins]

@MarkAtwood thanks for the request. Is there any issue with using tiles in Bermuda currently? As @nkhdk and @Lash-L have noted, as long as the MAC address is known they should function OK. Are there tiles which change their MAC address over time or some other issue preventing their use on your system?

As for the rest of the protocol (nice find, by the way!), these features would be ideal (imo) for adoption in the official core Tile integration, https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/tile

It looks like recentish (2022 Tile Mate?) tiles might randomise their mac address every 30 minutes or so, is this the root of your issue, perhaps?

Also note that if your phone is actively connected to a tile it's unlikely that the tile will continue to send broadcasts.

If they do rotate their mac addresses, I would suggest that the "correct" fix would be for the tile integration in core to discover and maintain the current mac address in some way, then I would be happy to modify Bermuda to look for any configured tiles in the tile integration and automatically track them in Bermuda - the same way that Bermuda currently handles Private BLE Devices.

I have no plans for Bermuda to support making active connections to devices, as this is highly device-specific and should be done by dedicated integrations - but I am very keen to integrate with those integrations in order to provide an automatic, seamless setup experience.