Controlling my mac/itunes with alexa, bluetooth

[stuartrozier]

Hello,

Ive recently been trying to connect my amazon echo to my mac computer, so i can control iTunes,

I have googled and found a few posts stating that this is possible via bluetooth, but, when it comes to pairing, adding my mac as a device to the alex app, the connection doesn't stay static.

It finds my mac, it connects, but then it disconnects after a couple of seconds,

I did try vice versa, adding my amazon echo device to my bluetooth using my mac, and again, it finds the echo, it adds it, but the connection shortly disconnects after a couple of seconds.

On the one occasion it did manage to stay connected to about a minute or so, i did ask alex to play/pause iTunes, giving it a test, but alexa came back saying it didn't recognise the command,

Does anybody have an experience with this topic ?

Many thanks in advance,

Stuart

[mike27oct]

Yes, you can pair a PC or Mac BT signal with an Alexa device.  Then, you can play music from iTunes or any program to the Alexa device.  You cannot control a computer with Alexa, it can only play music from the computer this way by selecting music from the computer.  When pairing, the two devices must be a few feet away.  After paired, the devices cannot be much over 30 feet apart; max range of BT signal.  If you read and follow carefully the instructions of you computer and the Echo , you should be able to get things going.  Many people have done so. 

[Swynol]

i have my Alexa connect by bluetooth to my PC.

If i play iTunes it works, i can use the commands pause, play, stop, volume up/down and they work. There is someone i know working on a skills that has complete control over iTunes and airplay devices.

[Jergnul]

As far as I know, you can connect your Mac to an Alexa device, and iTunes works with it, but there's no way to make Alexa control Mac. The archiecture of the spftware is quite different. there's also a chance that the means of protection against malware on your Mac (if you have any) may identify an Alexa device as suspicious. It's a BT connection, but still, there's been a lot of stories about new dangers to Mac privacy and online security,even the mail on mac needs to be properly maintained, so software and the OS itself can be jumpy after recent updates.

[Jergnul]

I'm no Apple hater, but the new iPhone X looks absolutely ridiculous. I mean, not only is it made of glass, but it also has very questionable safety features, especially FaceID. We all know things like that work with errors, and there will probably be many complaints about it not recognizing the owner. I'm not particularly happy about this kind of intrusive ID protection, Fingerprint scanners freaked me out way back, and now this. Compared to this, Google's link handling looks innocent.
Also, I don't think that a phone should cost this much anyway. yet iPhone is still the best there is.