By Dan Moren
April 7, 2017 1:47 PM PT
Quick Tip: Streaming audio from a Mac to the Amazon Echo
Note: This story has not been updated for several years.
So, I was listening to the bootleg recording of the first session of our new Total Party Kill campaign, Death House, ahead of the next session this weekend. Since this is basically just a hefty 4-hour MP3 file, I had just downloaded it to my Mac and was playing it via QuickTime Player. But I needed to wash some dishes in the kitchen and was trying to figure out how to pipe the audio over there.
Usually I listen to things in the kitchen by pairing my iPhone to the Amazon Echo and using it as a Bluetooth speaker. So I could have sideloaded the audio onto my iPhone via an app like GoodReader or something, but that seemed fussy and I didn’t want to spend the time. I also could have tried to pair my iMac directly to the Echo, but again, it would have been kind of a pain and taken more time than I wanted.1
So instead, I paired my iPhone with the Echo as usual, then launched Rogue Amoeba’s excellent Airfoil on my Mac, and configured it to send audio from QuickTime Player to the company’s iOS app, Airfoil Satellite, which I had in turn opened on my iPhone. Ta-da! Audio streamed from my Mac through the iPhone to the Echo with nary a problem, and since it was just playing the audio file from my Mac, it meant I didn’t lose my place when I went back to playing it on my computer later.
- Also, I feel like Bluetooth audio on the Mac has always been a little buggy. ↩
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His latest novel, the supernatural detective story All Souls Lost, is out now.]
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