Juice for Mac is the missing Bluetooth manager Apple should’ve made

Displeased with the Mac’s rudimentary interface for Bluetooth devices, developer Mike Choi took it upon himself to create Juice, his very own macOS Bluetooth manager for easier connecting to your favorite devices from places like the Touch Bar and Notification Center.

As you can clearly tell, Juice was inspired by Apple’s Home app.

Mike’s calling it “the most powerful Bluetooth manager for macOS” and it’s not pure marketing talk because Juice for Mac does make it a lot easier to manage your Bluetooth accessories from various places in the system. It definitely beats venturing into the Bluetooth preference pane (which, mind you, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of functionality).

Yes, Juice supports macOS Mojave’s Dark Mode

For starters, Juice lets you manage your Bluetooth hardware directly from the Touch Bar. Simply add the widget to your App Strip for quick access. When you want to connect to a specific device, hit the widget in your Touch Bar and choose a device from the list.

Customizing Juice’s settings

Juice’s ships with a Today widget that lets you manage devices and check the remaining battery charge from Notification Center (like the Battery widget on iOS, only there’s no Battery widget in macOS). You can also connect to specific devices in a snap with hotkeys. If you hate manually connecting your AirPods to your Mac every single time, you’ll appreciate hotkeys.

I especially liked an option of bringing up the underlying meta data upon right-clicking a device’s tile in Juice’s main interface—great for troubleshooting purposes.

Filing as Mike’s first Mac app, Juice needs some work despite the friendly interface that takes clues from Apple’s Home app—I’ve experienced issues where Juice wouldn’t display the battery charge of certain Bluetooth headphones. Besides, there’s no trial to see if Juice is for you.

Mike assures me Juice will improve with future updates so there’s that. If you bought the app but didn’t like it, reach out to Mike and ask for a refund and he’ll be happy to do so.

Check out this short list of the key features in Juice:

  • Connect and manage devices with ease: Enjoy instant access to your favorite Bluetooth devices from your Mac’s Touch Bar, Notification Center, a menu bar item or through a customizable keyboard shortcut.
  • Useful Touch Bar shortcuts: Connect with your devices from anywhere with the global Touch Bar widget that can be added to the App Strip for on-demand access.
  • Details: Right click on a device tile to learn more about it. Customize the keyboard shortcut to connect to a device. View comprehensive device metadata in the app.

Apple should’ve definitely made this.

If you’re looking for apps that make it easier to connect to Bluetooth headphones, be sure to check out ToothFairy and AirBuddy.

Juice for macOS is a $6 download from the official website.