Add Support for BLE OTA on device like ESP32-H2, andESP32-C6

[asucrews]

Component name

OTA

Link to component documentation on our website

https://esphome.io/components/ota/

Describe the enhancement

Currently, the ota component in ESPHome only supports Over-the-Air updates via Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or Thread.

This request is to add support for OTA updates via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), particularly for devices like the ESP32-H2 (which has no Wi-Fi) and ESP32-C6.

Espressif has released an official BLE OTA solution that supports BLE OTA using either the NimBLE or Bluedroid stacks. The esp_ble_ota component enables secure firmware updates using standard BLE GATT services.

I'd like to see ESPHome add support for BLE OTA using this Espressif-provided method, especially now that ESP32-H2 is supported in ESPHome 2025.6.0 via the esp-idf framework and already enables Thread-based transport.

Use cases

• Enable OTA updates on BLE-only or Thread-only devices, such as the ESP32-H2.
• Allow BLE OTA updates from a mobile app or Home Assistant via Bluetooth.
• Make ESPHome more viable for battery-powered sensors and BLE beacons where Wi-Fi is unavailable or too power-hungry.
• Align with other platforms like Zephyr/nRF52, which support OTA via mcuboot + BLE.
• Support field updates of remote sensors via mobile without needing Wi-Fi.

Anything else?

Relevant links:

• Espressif BLE OTA GitHub example: https://github.com/espressif/esp-iot-solution/tree/master/examples/bluetooth/ble_ota
• Component docs for esp_ble_ota: https://components.espressif.com/components/espressif/ble_ota
• ESP32-H2 BLE OTA blog: https://blog.csdn.net/Marchtwentytwo/article/details/136042039
• Related ESPHome changelog (Thread support on ESP32-H2): https://esphome.io/changelog/2025.6.0.html

I’d be happy to help test experimental support on real ESP32-H2 hardware and contribute logs or feedback.

[github-actions[bot]]

🏷️ I've automatically added the component: ota label to help categorize this feature request.

[tomaszduda23]

Align with other platforms like Zephyr/nRF52, which support OTA via mcuboot + BLE.

out of curiosity how would you like to do it? It seems that both user completely different protocol.

[asucrews]

Alignment doesn’t necessarily mean using the same protocol — it’s more about being consistent in how you structure your ESPHome YAML config. From what I’ve researched, they do use different protocols, so it’s definitely not as simple as copy-and-pasting Zephyr/nRF52 code (I wish it were!).

I’m not really a programmer, so I can’t say what the absolute best approach is. However, to my untrained eye, Espressif’s examples look like a solid starting point. My guess is that they’d need modifications to support the ESPHome API, but using the Espressif examples as a baseline makes sense since they come directly from the manufacturer.

Honestly, I’m even tempted to feed the example into an AI tool to see if it can produce a rough ESPHome implementation — though that might be a bit extreme.