Bluetoothctl

Bluetoothctl is a tool to manage and control bluetooth interface. You can pair and connect your Linux device with it.

You can use the bluetoothctl if the bluez-utils is installed in your system.

1. Prepare your Linux machine ready to use bluetoothctl

You can check if the kernel recognized bluetooth hardware module.

$ dmesg | grep -i blue       # To filter out dmesg lines with 'blue(tooth)'

If you plugged a Bluetooth USB dongle to your Linux machine, make sure the btusb kernel module is loaded.

$ ls /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/bluetooth
$ sudo modprobe btusb     # Load the btusb kernel module

And check if the modules are loaded.

$ lsmod | grep blue
$ lsmod | grep btusb

You might want to check the bluetooth service is running.

service bluetooth status
service bluetooth start
service bluetooth enable  # Start bluetooth service right after the booting

If you can see bluetooth interfaces from these commands, you can believe your Linux machine is ready to work with the bluetoothctl.

hciconfig -a
# or
bluetoothctl list

You can query the detailed information of the interface.

$ bluetoothctl show <MAC address>

Scan the pairable bluetooth gadgets nearby.

bluetoothctl scan on
# ...and stop scan if you desired.
bluetoothctl scan off

If you found the device you want to pair, it is time to pair.

bluetoothctl pair <MAC address>

If successfully paired, now you can connect it!

bluetoothctl connect <MAC address>

$ bluetoothctl help