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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.

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 '18 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 '18 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 '18 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 '18 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 '19 at 23:24

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