Cheap Mi Xiaomi BLE LCD Thermometers into Home Assistant

LCD Sensor Product

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001110925366.html
"XIAOMI Mijia Bluetooth Thermometer 2 Wireless Smart"
Sensors are around NZ$8.50 incl GST when I bought 4 of them.

Goal

Use esphome in an ESP32 dev board to pull the values of these temp sensors and integrate them into home assistant.

Howto

I followed this youtube howto from a year or so back. It is mostly correct.
Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be5zWukjV9I&t;
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ea7lQWpMk

Summary - configuring the devices

--Turn the units on (do this one at a time if you have multiple)
--Go to the TELink Flasher page https://pvvx.github.io/ATC_MiThermometer/TelinkMiFlasher.html. I suggest doing this on your phone as it needs to be a device with bluetooth.
--Use the tool to connect to the device, and grab the Mi Keys. Note them down. You won't need them if flashing the custom ATC firmware, but keep for future if needed.
--Flash the latest custom firmware (it is already loaded in the web page)
--Check the website here: if you want to know what the settings do (eg you can change to Fahrenheit, remove the little comfort smiley face, and extend the battery life with less reporting)
--For Advertising type, choose "MIJIA (Mi Home)". Previous notes (including the howto youtube video) said "Mi" or "Mi Like", but this works for me.
--Take note of the new name of the device, it will be something like ATC_91E1BB (which is the end of the MAC address)

Summary - ESPHome

-- Use ESPHome to flash the ESP32 (instructions elsewhere)
-- An example (my file) is below. You need the esp32_ble_tracker: line and one config for each sensor.
-- Note that the Bindkey is a dummy key (with the ATC firmware you need the dummy key)
-- Put the MAC address for the device(s) and label the Temp/Humidity/Battery for each of the devices with unique names

zorruno wikkiMiBluetoothTempESPHome