Changing bluetooth device name

Question

How can the friendly device name of a remote Bluetooth device be changed (using a command-line tool in Linux or similar)? I have looked at some of the software included in bluez-tools such as hcitool and bt-device, but none of these have the feature to change the remote device name. There does not seem to be any HCI command for doing this either.

I am aware of that it is possible to change the alias of devices in many bluetooth managers, but that is not the same thing. The alias is only visible on the local computer, while the device name is visible to all new devices.

Answer 1

Use bt-device (part of the bluez-tools package).

Get a list of paired devices:

bt-device -l

To set the new alias:

bt-device --set macaddress|name Alias "New Name"

ie:

bt-device --set S530 Alias "S530 Blue"

Answer 2

Answering over half a year later, but better late than never. It may help other people.

This answer is based on this blog post. It worked for me. In a very Linux-y style of doing things, it's based on editing configuration files rather than using a tool.

You need to edit two files:

• In /var/lib/bluetooth/[your MAC address]/config, edit the line that starts with name.

• In /etc/bluetooth/main.conf change the line with Name = %h-%d so that it reads only Name = %h, assuming you want to use your hostname as your bluetooth name (the %d adds a different index for each local bluetooth adapter, but you probably only have one). Using something else should work, but I haven't tried that myself.

Once you're done, restart the bluetooth service:

$ sudo service bluetooth restart

Answer 3

On Fedora I use the command bluetoothctl to change these settings.
This is provided by the package bluez, and in my case it was already installed.

bluetoothctl has a prompt that is accessed simply by running the command.
Its commands can also be used without accessing the prompt, but that way there is no autocompletion.

There is a distinction between external devices (mouse, keyboard, gamepad, etc.), and the host controllers (built-in BT card, external USB BT adapter, etc.).

With bluetoothctl is possible to change both device and controller alias, the process can be summed up in 3 steps:

• list the available controller/devices
• select the controller/device to modify
• modify the controller/device

The commands are:

Controller

• run bluetoothctl to access its prompt
• run list to list the available controllers
  • in my case I only have 1 controller, my laptop's BT card
• run select 00:11:22:33:44:55 to select the controller to modify
  • the address can be autocompleted with TAB, in my case is the only 1 address available
• run system-alias "new alias for my BT controller" to modify the controller alias

Device

• run bluetoothctl to access its prompt
• run devices to list the available devices
  • the output can be filtered by using optional properties, for example devices Connected
• run connect AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF to select the devices to modify
  • the address can be autocompleted with TAB
• run set-alias "new alias for my BT device" to modify the device alias

---

help can be used to get an overview of the available commands:

[bluetooth]# help
Menu main:
Available commands:
-------------------
...
list                                              List available controllers
...
select <ctrl>                                     Select default controller
devices [Paired/Bonded/Trusted/Connected]         List available devices, with an optional property as the filter
system-alias <name>                               Set controller alias
reset-alias                                       Reset controller alias
...
set-alias <alias>                                 Set device alias
...
connect <dev>                                     Connect device
...