Hello everyone.
I’m asking a question here but I don’t know if this is the right place.
I want to control or at least try to retrieve information from a Bluetti AC180, which only communicates via Bluetooth. Ubuntu detects it well, that’s already something.
I read that I need to go through Node-RED and MQTT, I asked Gemini to help me as a beginner, without success after going in circles for an hour trying the solution bluetti_mqtt
I imagine someone knows the trick 
Thanks a lot
Olivier
Hi Olivier, and welcome!
If you’ve been going in circles, it’s not your fault: bluetti_mqtt has not been maintained since 2024 and does not support the AC180 (it stops at the AC200M, AC300, EB3A…). Additionally, recent AC180 models encrypt their Bluetooth.
The up-to-date library that handles the AC180, including encryption, is bluetti-bt-lib. For now, it only serves a Home Assistant integration: its MQTT gateway is planned, but not yet released. The day it is, no need for Node-RED: Gladys’s MQTT integration can directly read a custom topic for each feature.
There is not yet a Bluetti integration for Gladys, so no simple trick today, sorry.
Oh dear.
So either I go through Home Assistant or a hardware solution, Gemini was talking about going through an esp32 module
Thanks Guim
For the AC180, yes, Home Assistant is currently the only reliable path. ESP32 bridges, like Bluetti_ESP32_Bridge, reuse the code from bluetti_mqtt: same issue, neither AC180 nor encryption.
If you want to keep Gladys, Home Assistant can serve as a simple bridge: its MQTT Statestream integration publishes values on MQTT, and Gladys reads them with custom topics.
Oh yes, I’m staying on Gladys.
Is there a method explained somewhere to make Gladys and Home Assistant coexist?