Is there a command-line interface to list all Bluetooth devices in range on mac?
I want to list all in-range Bluetooth devices, ideally with hostnames, but MAC addresses would be sufficient. I need a command that performs an active scan so I can poll to see if my device is nearby, not one that lists previously paired devices.
My use-case is detecting whether my Bluetooth headphones or iPhone are in range of my Mac, to trigger security setting changes (e.g. sudo timeout). I've done a fair bit of Googling, and the only things I seem to be able to find are iOS swift code examples. I would be happy with a macOS Swift code example, AppleScript example, bash example, or pointers to good docs.
I've looked at these options so far:
blued: prints a list of mac addresses but they don't seem to change when devices go in or out of range or connect, and they aren't matched up to hostnamesblueutil(brew install blueutil): only prints power state, not device namesbluetoothaudiod: no usable interface- This Objective-C code Create a Terminal-Based Bluetooth Monitor in XCode?: I get several errors when compiling so it's hard to test it
- Using AppleScript to read it out the
Bluetooth Explorer.appGUI - Using
dtraceto see howBluetooth Explorer.appcomputes the list: difficult last resort - The Proximity App from this forum post: Doesn't have a command line interface, so I cant query it remotely. I can write a script that stores the state in a file to read later, but it only works for one device at a time.
Edit 2017/01: Found this SO answer with details on finding nearby devices in Swift:
List devices that are in range of Bluetooth device in Swift
Edit 2017/10: Found an updated SO answer for Swift 3 & 4.0: Nearby Bluetooth devices using Swift 3.0
Answer
In Terminal, the command :
system_profiler SPBluetoothDataType
gives you all the details about Bluetooth, including devices paired, with their names, MAC address. Result is unfortunately a bit too much, but with sed or grep command, you should extract what you need.