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I have two Playstation 4 Dualshock controllers and am thinking of getting two more. They have both bluetooth and usb connections, but prefer bluetooth to avoid cable salad — and of course to be able to conveniently play games on the big screen from the couch. Am thus far unable to use both wirelessly at the same time.

How to connect and use both controllers using bluetooth at the same time?

  • Tested on macOS High Sierra (10.13) and macOS Sierra (10.12) on two separate 2015 model Macbooks.
  • Can pair with both controllers individually, if turning bluetooth off/on between.
  • Cannot connect with both at the same time.

As soon as one controller is connected, the other is basically ignored. As soon as the first controller is disconnected, the second one can be connected, and vice versa.

Would prefer not to use third-party (especially closed source) software, nor do I want to buy additional hardware.

Note: using Apple's Bluetooth Explorer (part of Hardware IO Tools for Xcode, Apple Developer login required) I can reset the bluetooth stack, clear device caches, restart blued etcetera. This has not helped in this case, but am also not familiar enough with this advanced tool to know all the tricks.

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  • It would be nice to either confirm (with relevant references) that connecting more than one controller using bluetooth will absolutely not work, or, of course, find a working (and reasonably convenient) solution to the problem.
    – Joel Purra
    Feb 2, 2018 at 8:10
  • Silly clarification, but do you have the Bluetooth menu enabled and can you request macOS to connect to both? You’ll want to name each differently in the Bluetooth pref pane to avoid confusion.
    – bmike ♦
    Sep 6, 2018 at 22:54
  • @bmike: Yes, I have requested connecting to both at the same time, from both the menubar bluetooth dropdown menu and the bluetooth preferences window -- doesn't work. Yes, I've tried renaming the controllers in the bluetooth preferences. It helps a bit when debugging that one controller is red and the other one black =)
    – Joel Purra
    Sep 7, 2018 at 7:38
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    @JoelPurra: I am having the exact same problem as you. I am running macOS Mojave 10.14 on Macbook pro 15 inch 2017, with two PS4 Dualshock controllers, one white and one black
    – Hải Phong
    Oct 30, 2018 at 10:19
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    I have this same exact issue as well. macOS Mojave 10.14.2 with two black PS4 dual shock controllers. Called Apple Tech Support - no solution and they blame the controllers.
    – Chad
    Jan 23, 2019 at 23:24

2 Answers 2

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I've so far been unable to use 2 PS4 Dualshock controllers over Bluetooth with my 2016 Macbook Pro running Mojave.

Pairing either one with my mac would make the other unable to pair. Renaming the Wireless Controller connection to something more decent did not help.

What helped somewhat was upgrading to the dreaded Catalina - I was able to pair both controllers BUT couldn't play any games with them. The games didn't consistently receive commands from either controller, I was unable to move any of the controlled characters more than a couple pixels on the screen, it was a nightmare. I assumed this was because the controllers kept interfering with one another

What totally helped was replacing one of the PS4 controllers with an XBOX One wireless controller. This worked & fixed all issues, we got no more interferences, and the response time was fine.

Note: all tested controllers were connected wirelessly via BT, games used were Cuphead and Knights & Bikes running on Steam.

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I successfully managed to connect up to 4 DualShock 4 v2 on my Mac mini 2012 running High Sierra 10.13.6 using an external Bluetooth Dongle (not with the builtin Mac mini BT controller).

Multiple gamepads could not be connected simultaneously as described in the question.

I purchased Mac-compatible Bluetooth USB dongles:

I highly recommend Sena UD100-G03 as I had issues with limited range coverage with the tiny Belkin F8T065bf. I also added an extension antenna to my Sena UD100-G03.

Both of the aforementioned dongles run on my Mac without any drivers needed: 100% plug and play!

Recommendations:

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