The default Ubuntu settings gives us few options for controlling bluetooth devices.
We can add the blueman software package and get this more detailed GUI. Type $ blueman-manager from CLI to launch. Connected devices display signal power, batteries, etc. Right click will give a menu of connect and properties commands.
Open a terminal and type hciconfig and we see the bluetooth adaptors, if any. Adaptors are the bluetooth receivers located in the computer and may be USB devices. This computer has two adaptors. Many computers will not have bluetooth and display nothing.
Type bluetoothctl and you get a submenu. Waiting to connect to bluetoothd means there is no bluetooth process running, type ctrl-c to exit.
In the bluetoothctl submenu you will see device names and media access control MAC addresses. Working in terminal you ctrl-shift-c to copy text and ctrl-shift-v to paste. Remember your keyboard up arrow scrolls back through commands.
Type scan on and watch nearby bluetooth devices communicate. RSSI is for received signal strength indicator. Type quit to exit.
You see there is a Bluetooth Optical Mouse and it has a Media Access Control MAC Address 00:11:67:00:01:A9. Type info mac address to see information on a device.
We are going to manually trust, pair and connect using this address.
ubuntu:~$ bluetoothctl
Agent registered
[prompt]# trust 00:11:67:00:01:A9
[prompt]# pair 00:11:67:00:01:A9
[prompt]# connect 00:11:67:00:01:A9From the CLI terminal window type bluetoothctl and enter the submenu. Execute the trust, pair and connect commands with the MAC address of the device. Wait a moment between commands and look at the messages.
You can see errors in the screen capture. The mouse was connected and working despite these messages. Type quit to exit.
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