Programmatically removing all bluetooth devices on the Linux command line

Question

I am able to scan for all available bluetooth devices with hcitool or with my C program.

I can pair the device using it's address with a simple-agent python script.

I would like to know if I can also remove the paired device using either hcitool, hciconfig or some kind of bluetooth command.

I know the information of detected devices for the hci0 controller is stored in /var/lib/bluetooth/XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX, where XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is the address of the hci controller.

This would be useful for testing pairing, connecting and disconnecting devices.

Could you share with me how exactly do you use the hcitool on OS X to scan for BT — Ruskes, May 30 '14 at 21:42

score 16 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 26 '21 at 00:16

For those using Ubuntu 20.04, here is the same command using the bluetoothctl command

#!/bin/bash 
for device in $(bluetoothctl devices  | grep -o "[[:xdigit:]:]\{8,17\}"); do
    echo "removing bluetooth device: $device | $(bluetoothctl remove $device)"
done

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 11 '13 at 05:53

8

bluez-test-device remove XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

answered Jul 11 '13 at 05:53

ashish

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(And get the XX:XX:XX:... with `bluez-list-devices`.) – Stephen Niedzielski Apr 30 '15 at 23:52
This really helped me to solve my problem. bluez-test-device command seems to be useful for making bluetooth create/remove/trusted programmatically, thanks. – Levent Divilioglu Jun 15 '15 at 18:26
What do I need to install? – Xbox One Sep 15 '20 at 12:01

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 09 '14 at 07:36

8

If you install the bluez-tools package, run this to unpair a bluetooth device :

bt-device -r xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

where xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx is the address of the paired device.

answered Oct 09 '14 at 07:36

BЈовић

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Works perfectly for me – Pitto Jun 05 '15 at 10:32
Doesn't work if the bt-device has not been installed. – thanos.a Jun 03 '23 at 13:03

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 15 '15 at 18:31

As it is mentioned above on ashish's answer, you can us bluez-test-device to remove the device which that you already know its mac address. So the problem is to parse the mac address of the added devices.

With python or c or whatever you use,

1) list the devices with;

bluez-test-device list

and parse the output and get all the MAC addresses of the devices, add them to a list.

2) disconnect and remove the devices;

bluez-test-device disconnect <MAC ADDRESS>
bluez-test-device remove <MAC ADDRESS>

score 5 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 09 '20 at 13:56

5

Command using bluetoothctl binary: for device in $(bluetoothctl devices | grep -vEi '(o que mais vc quer deixar aqui|samsung|jbl|wireless)' | awk '{print $2}'); do bluetoothctl remove $device; done

edited Jul 09 '20 at 13:56

dejanualex

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answered Jul 08 '20 at 21:30

Ariel Dalefe Alves

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This is exactly what I needed, been looking everywhere for a simple solution like this. – George Willcox Jul 30 '21 at 11:25

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 25 '20 at 14:44

All these answers don't answer the headline "removing all Bluetooth devices"

I wrote this little bash script to remove all the Bluetooth devices that are listed in the bt-device -l

#!/bin/bash 
for device in $(bt-device -l | grep -o "[[:xdigit:]:]\{11,17\}"); do
    echo "removing bluetooth device: $device | $(bt-device -r $device)"
done

How to run?

Make a new file like <fileName>.sh and paste the code above.
Run chmod +x <fileName> to make the script executable
Run ./<fileName>.sh
Celebrate! All Bluetooth devices are removed now :)

Programmatically removing all bluetooth devices on the Linux command line

6 Answers6

How to run?