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Raspberry Pi Bluetooth Configuration

On the Raspberry Pi 3 and newer, the integrated Bluetooth module communicates with the SoC via a UART interface using the Host Controller Interface (HCI) protocol.

Bluetooth over UART​

The hciattach utility is commonly used to bind the Bluetooth module to the serial port.

Disabling Bluetooth​

You might want to disable Bluetooth to save power, free up the hardware UART for other purposes, or improve system stability.

Method: Using Device Tree Overlays​

Add the following line to your /boot/config.txt (or /boot/firmware/config.txt on newer OS versions):

# Disable Bluetooth on RPi 3/4/5
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt
  • Effect: After rebooting, the Bluetooth hardware will be disabled, and the hciattach / hci0 process will no longer be active. (禁用后就不会有 hciattach 的进程)
  • Comprehensive Guide to Disabling Bluetooth

Troubleshooting Resources​

  • Bluetooth connectivity issues on RPi 4 (Official Forums)
  • Log Inspection: Use journalctl -u bluetooth and hciconfig -a for diagnostics.
  • Mainline Linux Note: On non-Raspberry Pi OS distributions, you may need specific firmware packages (e.g., raspberrypi-sys-mods or bluez-firmware) for the Broadcom chip to initialize correctly.