add BluezQt provider for Bluetooth device battery by birrkan · Pull Request #40 · itayavra/batterywatch

birrkan · 2026-07-29T19:39:31Z

Some Bluetooth devices (e.g. 8bitdo controllers) expose battery level through the Bluetooth GATT Battery Service but not through UPower. The system Bluetooth menu reads this data from BlueZ directly.

This merge adds a new BluezProvider that uses BluezQt.Manager to read battery percentages directly from BlueZ, bypassing UPower entirely. The provider is integrated into the existing multi-provider pipeline:

New file: contents/ui/providers/BluezProvider.qml
Case-insensitive serial dedup in mergeDevices():
- the same device's Bluetooth MAC address can appear as "AA:BB:CC:..." from BluezProvider and "aa:bb:cc:..." from UPowerProvider, which causes a dublicate device, therefore avoiding dublication
Prefers non-zero percentage when two providers report the same
device (BlueZ data replaces UPower's 0% entries)

before:

after :

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR adds a new Bluetooth-specific battery provider that reads GATT Battery Service percentages directly from BlueZ via BluezQt, then integrates it into the existing multi-provider device merge pipeline so Bluetooth devices that show 0% via UPower can display correct battery levels.

Changes:

Added BluezProvider.qml using BluezQt.Manager to expose connected Bluetooth devices with battery percentages and a disconnect action.
Integrated the Bluez provider into main.qml and enhanced mergeDevices() to deduplicate case-insensitively and prefer non-zero battery readings.
Added BlueZ integration configuration (enable toggle + polling interval) to the config UI and KConfig schema.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

File	Description
contents/ui/providers/BluezProvider.qml	New provider that reads Bluetooth battery % directly from BlueZ/BluezQt and exposes devices to the merge pipeline.
contents/ui/main.qml	Adds Bluez provider to the provider list and adjusts merge logic for case-insensitive dedup + non-zero preference.
contents/ui/config/Modules.qml	Adds UI controls for enabling BlueZ integration and configuring polling interval.
contents/config/main.xml	Adds KConfig entries for BlueZ enablement and polling interval defaults.

Suppressed comments (2)

contents/ui/providers/BluezProvider.qml:169

The BlueZ event Connections stay active even when BlueZ integration is disabled, which can cause devices to be repopulated and extra work to be done. Gate the Connections on the same config toggle.

    Connections {
        target: btManager
        function onDeviceAdded() { updateDevices() }

contents/ui/providers/BluezProvider.qml:182

The polling Timer runs unconditionally (running: true), so it will continue to call updateDevices() even when BlueZ integration is disabled. Tie running to bluezEnabled and consider triggeredOnStart: true so devices populate immediately when enabled.

    Timer {
        interval: Plasmoid.configuration.bluezPollingTime * 1000
        running: true
        repeat: true
        onTriggered: updateDevices()

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+    function updateDevices() {
+        if (!btManager.operational) {
+            devices = []
+            return
+        }


+    function makeDisconnect(address) {
+        return function() {
+            disconnectSource.connectSource("bluetoothctl disconnect " + address)
+        }
+    }


+                // Normalise to lowercase for case-insensitive dedup
+                // the same device's Bluetooth MAC address can appear as "AA:BB:CC:..." from BluezProvider and
+                // "aa:bb:cc:..." from UPowerProvider, which causes a dublicate device, therefore avoiding dublication
+                var id = (device.serial || device.objectPath || "").toLowerCase();


+        Item {
+            Kirigami.FormData.isSection: true
+            Kirigami.FormData.label: i18n("Bluez Integration")


itayavra · 2026-07-31T19:05:25Z

+    // battery percentage >= 0, and build a device object for each.
+    // The device object shape matches what main.qml's mergeDevices() expects
+    // (see: main.qml -> fullRepresentation -> device properties used).
+    function updateDevices() {


The enable toggle doesn't actually work. updateDevices() has no bluezEnabled guard, the Timer runs unconditionally (running: true), and the Connections block keeps firing on BlueZ signals even when the integration is disabled. So within ~5 seconds of unchecking the box, or immediately on the next BlueZ signal onBluezEnabledChanged clears devices and it just gets repopulated again.

Fix in BluezProvider.qml:

:65 — early return at the top of updateDevices():
if (!bluezEnabled) { devices = []; return }
(also covers the manual refresh path, since main.qml's refreshDevices() calls refresh() → updateDevices() directly)

:180 — running: true → running: bluezEnabled

:168 — Connections { enabled: bluezEnabled } to stop signal-driven repopulation entirely

While here, consider triggeredOnStart: true on the timer so devices populate immediately on load instead of after the first 5s tick.

Compare KDEConnectProvider.qml:228, which already ties running to its config flag and guards its handlers.

itayavra · 2026-07-31T19:14:54Z

+                // "aa:bb:cc:..." from UPowerProvider, which causes a dublicate device, therefore avoiding dublication
+                var id = (device.serial || device.objectPath || "").toLowerCase();
+
+                if (id) {


consider flipping the if's + early returns, i think it makes the code easier to follow

itayavra · 2026-07-31T19:19:41Z

+                        merged.push(device);
+                        seenIds[id] = merged.length - 1;
+                    } else {
+                        var existingDevice = merged[existing];


this might cause issues with multi-battery data (e.g L/R/Case)
i think the merging rule should be no battery data < single battery data < multi battery data

a quick idea i had was to add some batteryDataScore helper:

function batteryDataScore(device) { if (device.batteries && device.batteries.length > 1) return 2; if (device.percentage > 0) return 1; return 0; }

which you can then use like:

if (batteryDataScore(device) > batteryDataScore(merged[existing])) { merged[existing] = device; }

but all ideas are welcome

itayavra · 2026-07-31T19:25:33Z

+                // Normalise to lowercase for case-insensitive dedup
+                // the same device's Bluetooth MAC address can appear as "AA:BB:CC:..." from BluezProvider and
+                // "aa:bb:cc:..." from UPowerProvider, which causes a dublicate device, therefore avoiding dublication
+                var id = (device.serial || device.objectPath || "").toLowerCase();


adding as claude flagged this too:
The hidden-devices list is matched by device.serial (case-sensitive indexOf in main.qml). UPower normalizes its extracted MAC to uppercase (UPowerProvider.qml:97). If mergeDevices replaces a UPower entry with a BluezProvider entry and the user had previously hidden that device (serial saved as e.g. AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF), the new entry's serial is whatever dev.address returns from BlueZ. If the cases differ, the indexOf match fails and the device silently reappears.

Easy fix: normalize dev.address to uppercase when building the device object, same as UPower does:

serial: dev.address.toUpperCase(), bluetoothAddress: dev.address.toUpperCase(),

itayavra · 2026-07-31T19:30:22Z

+        function onOperationalChanged() { updateDevices() }
+    }
+
+    // Fallback polling timer in case BlueZ events are missed.


missing the initial updateDevices() call on Component.onCompleted, so the list stays empty until the first timer tick (~5s) or the first BlueZ signal

consider adding

Component.onCompleted: updateDevices()

itayavra · 2026-07-31T19:33:39Z

+    // Executable data source used to run bluetoothctl for disconnect.
+    // Same pattern as UPowerProvider.qml's btDisconnectSource.
+    P5Support.DataSource {
+        id: disconnectSource


minor but disconnectSource id might shadow the disconnectSource function

itayavra · 2026-07-31T19:50:51Z

@@ -0,0 +1,184 @@
+import QtQuick 2.15
+import org.kde.bluezqt as BluezQt


running the plasmoid on a system without org.kde.bluezqt available will cause the entire widget to crash, and it seems it is a possibility on some systems
i think it's better to not rely on it at all, and read BlueZ through bluetoothctl at runtime (you're already using it to disconnect), e.g:
bluetoothctl info <MAC>

should also give you the icon field, so getDeviceType can go away

i'm doing something similar in the upower provider too

itayavra · 2026-07-31T19:52:19Z

@birrkan thank you so much for this! i really appreciate the contribution!

itayavra · 2026-08-11T22:52:34Z

@birrkan Hey, it's been a while and I would love to push this branch. Will you have time to address the comments?
If you're busy or stuck, happy to take over the fixes and push to your branch

add BluezQt provider for Bluetooth device battery

1da51cb

itayavra requested a review from Copilot July 31, 2026 18:26

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of itayavra July 31, 2026 18:27 View session

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itayavra reviewed Jul 31, 2026

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add BluezQt provider for Bluetooth device battery - #40

add BluezQt provider for Bluetooth device battery#40
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		@@ -0,0 +1,184 @@
		import QtQuick 2.15
		import org.kde.bluezqt as BluezQt

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