Sixpair Mac

| Posted on by

On Mac Download SixPair Tool and run the app. Connect your iOS device to your computer with the lightning cable or 30-pin cable. Connect your PS3 controller to your Mac with a USB cable. Click the “Pair Controller to iPad” button. Step 5: Plug in your Dual Shock 3 to your computer via USB mini cable, and SixPair should detect your controller. Step 6: Once SixPair sees your controller, click the Pair Controller to iPad button. This will copy the Bluetooth Mac address from your iPad to the PS3 controller so that the devices can communicate with one another.

Building and using the sixpair command-line app to edit the Bluetooth master address of PS3 controller (for pairing with EV3)

Sixpair Mac

This only seems to work with an authentic PS3 controller. Don’t use a knockoff brand.

Pairing a (real) PS3 controller with a non-PS3 device is technically straightforward, but not an automated process. The easiest way to do this is to connect the PS3 controller to your Mac via a mini-USB cable and run a command-line tool (called sixpair) to configure the gamepad to pair with the EV3’s Bluetooth address.

Sixpair mac
  • Information about the sixpair tool is available here:
  • C-source code is available here:
  • A binary for macOS is here:
    • Using Safari, this file downloads as sixpair.dms (it’s an issue with Safari). Rename it to just sixpair.

Running sixpair, either from the binary or by building it from the C source, requires a library, libusb. Not the current 1.0.x, but an old 0.1.14 version, which is still available as libusb-compat (for backwards compatibility). Again, it’s Homebrew to the rescue:

Now, you can easily build sixpair via the command line (assuming you have Xcode installed):

Whether you’ve built it from source or downloaded the binary, you execute it the same way from the command line (assuming you’re currently in its directory):

##:##:##:##:##:## is the ID of the controller’s current Bluetooth master (probably your computer). To change it you specify a new master Bluetooth address [<bd_addr of master>] (from the EV3) in xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx format:

Sixpair Mac Download

You can now unplug the PS3 DualShock3 controller from your Mac, and it is ready to pair with your EV3 (when it’s running brickhid, as described on the parent page, here).

Sixpair Tool Mac

FYI, if a controller is NOT plugged into your computer, you’ll get the following error from running sixpair: