bluez has a tool called 'btmgmt' that is in the tree but also generally installed, that appears to avoid dbus. $ ./btmgmt power on Set Powered for hci0 failed with status 0x03 (Failed) Meanwhile dmesg is scrolling these by. It's actually scrolling even without the btmgmt command: [25405.762943] Bluetooth: hci0: command 0x1001 tx timeout [25407.775009] Bluetooth: hci0: command 0x1009 tx timeout [25411.967140] Bluetooth: hci0: hardware error 0x00 [25413.983114] Bluetooth: hci0: command 0x1003 tx timeout [25415.999142] Bluetooth: hci0: command 0x1001 tx timeout [25418.015175] Bluetooth: hci0: command 0x1009 tx timeout [25422.207267] Bluetooth: hci0: hardware error 0x00 [25424.223265] Bluetooth: hci0: command 0x1003 tx timeout [25426.239302] Bluetooth: hci0: command 0x1001 tx timeout Some issue with hci0. However, the adapter information works fine: $ btmgmt info Index list with 1 item hci0: Primary controller addr version 9 manufacturer 305 class 0x000000 supported settings: powered connectable fast-connectable discoverable bondable link-security ssp br/edr le advertising secure-conn debug-keys privacy static-addr phy-configuration current settings: ssp br/edr le secure-conn name ubuntu short name