Presence Pair

Presence Pair securely links your iPhone to the open-source Presence Bridge integration for Home Assistant.

Enrollment needs a compatible receiver. Windows uses the free separate receiver with MQTT. Presence Bridge 0.2.0 adds experimental headless Linux support, remotely with MQTT or inside suitably configured HA with BlueZ, D-Bus and read-only bond storage, without MQTT. HA OS and restricted NAS installations may still need a separate receiver. Passive Bluetooth proxies cannot perform initial enrollment.

Create a short-lived code in Home Assistant, scan it with Presence Pair, and approve the encrypted Bluetooth connection to your own receiver. Presence Bridge can then use rotating private Bluetooth addresses as one local signal for room-level presence.

Bluetooth setup does not require the iPhone to join Wi-Fi. Remote receivers need access to MQTT; local Linux runs inside Home Assistant. You do not need to interact with the server screen.

After setup, an optional, separate QR enables Live signal: view your phone's latest received Bluetooth strength in dBm, receiver names and sample age while the app is open. This read-only monitor requires an HTTPS connection to your Home Assistant. It does not measure precise distance in meters or grant control of your home.

The app does not need your Home Assistant password, does not create a cloud account, does not collect analytics, and does not send location data to the developer. Pairing and Live signal are free. No purchase or subscription is required.

Report a problem from the app and preview optional technical diagnostics before sending. Nothing is sent automatically. Diagnostics exclude QR codes, Bluetooth keys, names and network addresses.

Explore the clearly labelled offline Pairing preview from Help or with the public demo QR. It uses fictional stages and signal values, without Bluetooth hardware or changes to your Home Assistant.

Requirements:
- Presence Bridge installed in Home Assistant
- MQTT configured in Home Assistant for remote receivers; not needed for supported local Linux mode
- A compatible always-on Windows Bluetooth receiver supporting BLE central and peripheral roles, with its configured user signed in (the desktop may be locked)
- Experimental Linux alternative: compatible BLE adapter, BlueZ/D-Bus and read-only access to bond storage; see the integration's Linux guide
- iOS 17 or later; passive tracking availability depends on phone advertisements and radio coverage

Presence Pair is an independent companion app and is not affiliated with Nabu Casa or Apple.