awesome-esp-rust VS bluetooth-proxies

Yes! The training developed with Ferrous Systems (https://esp-rs.github.io/std-training/) contains several examples, and you can find many community projects in https://github.com/esp-rs/awesome-esp-rust#projects

Good places to get started with std Rust on ESP include the Rust on ESP book, Embedded Rust on Espressif by Ferrous Systems. There's also the Awesome ESP Rust GitHub repository that contains a lot of useful material and project examples.

Looks really interesting, do you mind sharing it (if its open-source) once its done? Probably it could be a great addition to https://github.com/esp-rs/awesome-esp-rust

Not sure if you are aware of the projects mentioned here: https://github.com/esp-rs/awesome-esp-rust#projects

If you're already using Home Assistant, you can install ESPHome on any ESP32-based device and use it as a Bluetooth Proxy hub. I already had some smartplugs and bulbs flashed with ESPHome, so it was as simple as adding a couple more lines of code to get a few BLE Proxy hubs, with no additional hardware required for the hub.

Home Assistant and Bluetooth Proxy is probably your best bet: https://esphome.github.io/bluetooth-proxies/

where can I find the yaml configuration file? I flashed the esp32 directly with the bluetooth proxy wizard, hence I never touched the yaml file myself. Is it stored somewhere in HA?

Yep, these are the way to go. Small and with a case, so ready to put around the house.

Using just your browser you can transform these into Bluetooth proxies for Home Assistant with https://esphome.github.io/bluetooth-proxies/

I think the sequence when using the web installer from here is that it first installed a basic EXPHome WiFi connector and once done, supposed to autmomagically install the BT Proxy software but it fails. It gives you the chance to rename it to something more appropriate but then you get some other 'web' ESP device pop up?

ESPHome uses a yaml file as input from which to generate the binary firmware file for your ESP. Flashing via their github as you did means it will use one of these predefined yaml files. Because you chose generic esp, it will be using this one. As you can see it already has the api: line in there (line 21).

with framework set to esp-idf (as per https://github.com/esphome/bluetooth-proxies/blob/main/gl-s10.yaml), the device logs stop at "Starting scheduler on APP CPU"