Check Bluetooth Adapter Version and Status on Linux

In this article, we’ll look at how to check for Bluetooth adapters on a Linux computer or laptop, and how to find out the Bluetooth version.

Make sure that the Bluetooth service is up and running on Linux:

$ systemctl status bluetooth

View hardware and manufacturer information about Bluetooth adapters:

$ lsusb | grep bluetooth -i

Tools from the bluez package are used to manage Bluetooth devices and connections on Ubuntu and Debian Linux. Install this package:

$ sudo apt install bluez

Find information about all available Bluetooth adapters:

$ btmgmt info

You can filter the output of the btmgmt tool to get the MAC addresses of Bluetooth adapters and their versions with the command:

$ btmgmt info | awk 'BEGIN{split("1.0b 1.1 1.2 2.0 2.1 3.0 4.0 4.1 4.2 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3",i," ")}$1=="addr"{print $2"\tBluetooth: V"i[$4+1]}'

You can also use the legacy hciconfig and hcitool tools to get Bluetooth information. On Ubuntu Linux, open a terminal and run the command:

$ hciconfig -a

Find the lines:

• LMP Version
• HCI Version

Refer to the table to determine your Bluetooth version. HCI number 0x8 corresponds to Bluetooth version 4.2 in our example.

You can find out the MAC address and the version of Bluetooth for the remote device. List all connected (paired) BT devices:

$ hcitool con

Or with the command:

$ bluetoothctl devices

You can scan for available Bluetooth devices within range:

$ bluetoothctl scan on

Find out the Bluetooth version (HCI/LMP) of the remote device by its MAC address:

$ hcitool info AA:2B:21:31:23:BE