When pairing a bluetooth keyboard(-like) device with Yosemite, can the pin number be skipped?

I ordered one of these Vicro Technilogy Ltd. Bluetooth Mini GamePad (PA-BK11) ’s off of Amazon.

Mini gamepad on keychain

It shows up as “Bluetooth Gamepad” in the Bluetooth system preferences panel, with a keyboard icon. I can click “pair,” at which point it asks me to type in a 6 digit number.

Is there a trick to making it pair without entering the requested PIN number? Having no luck Googling this one. There are one or two articles on accomplishing the same in Linux, but nothing for Mac.

The controller is not anything special, but it’s small enough to fit in my kids’ hands when they play Nintendo games, something that none of the other controllers can do even if they do pair correctly.

[edit] I've since tried this with a newer (2014) iMac at work. Though both it and my own computer (2009 model) use Yosemite, the 2014 iMac doesn't require a pin to be typed in. According to Apple.com, my Mac has Bluetooth 2.1.


Solution 1:

I've managed to connect to a cheap Chinese play/pause button using blueutil on Big Sur. Just use blueutil --connect ID without pairing it first. After a couple of tries it started working.

Solution 2:

You mention a “6 digit number” but from what I understand about how Bluetooth gamepads pair in Mac OS X it should be a 4 digit PIN.

Regardless, you can enter any series of digits from your main system keyboard and it should work. Try something like 0000/000000 or 1234/123456 and it should be able to pair without issue.