HomePod MAC address determination

I’m guessing the only “official” way is to connect to a device that logs or displays the MAC address of the connecting device. Most Wi-Fi routers do, as do most phones and tablets that offer hotspot capabilities. The cool thing is, you can pick up a super cheap old-school Wi-Fi router for $20 these days. Plenty of workarounds but no apparent way to get it to report its MAC address verbally or otherwise. Yet. You can also report this to feedback: https://www.apple.com/feedback/homepod.html

It would be trivial for Apple to add a special hot key or Siri code: “Hey Siri, what is your MAC address?” Or maybe display it in the app during initial connection?

Alright this is what I did, my university wifi has MAC address filtering, therefore, you need to find the MAC adress of the HomePod and tell your Uni to add it in, in order to bypass the setup process.

The way to find MAC of HomePod is

1. Make sure HomePod is ready to be pair (If not reset it first)

2. Connect your iOS device to a wifi hotspot sharing by an android phone

3. Once your iPhone/iPad is connected starting the pairing process with HomePod

4. The setup should complete -> On the android device look under list of device that's connecting to it

5. You should see "HomePod" press on it, It will show you the MAC address

6. Tell your network provider to add this MAC address

7. Remove HomePod from your Homekit app

8. Manually reset the HomePod

9. Connect your iPhone/iPad to the Wifi you prefer in the first place

10. Now start to pair with HomePod

Hope this help. it works for me

I know you already solved it but in case anyone else is running into the same issue, this is what worked for me (similar to what other people tried). Alternatively, you could setup a Genius Bar appointment and have them setup your HomePod on their wifi network with your phone and they can find your MAC address by running a scan on their client list (this is what the Apple Support technician recommended before I got impatient and solved it myself).

1. Download Network Scanner onto MacBook from the App Store (it's free)

2. Make wifi hotspot with someone else's phone (used my gf's iPhone)

3. Connect MacBook and your iPhone to the hotspot

4. Plug in HomePod and complete setup with HomePod with your iPhone

5. Run scan on Network Scanner, it should labeled "Living Room" or whatever location you assigned the HomePod, MAC address should be listed and write it down

6. Remove HomePod from the Home app by pressing "Remove Accessory" within the HomePod screen in Home app

6. Turn off hotspot and reconnect your devices to the intended wifi network

7. Add MAC address to your account/contact admin to add MAC address to the intended wifi network

8. Reset HomePod by unplugging it, replug, and then then press and hold touchscreen on top of HomePod until it turns red and you hear three beeps

9. Repeat HomePod setup with your iPhone

10. Enjoy HomePod!

HomePod doesn’t support captive or subscription networks. If you set up HomePod to use one of these networks, you’ll need to reset HomePod and set it up again on a different Wi-Fi network.

If HomePod isn't responding - Apple Support

You may need to setup the HomePod on a network without MAC registration first on order to obtain the MAC address ( Similar to Apple TV 4 on first release ). Not 100% if it will show in Home App after setup like other HomeKit devices. Some HomeKit devices do not display MAC ID in the Home App even after setup which might be the case.

I had the same question - here's how I got my HomePod's MAC Address.

1. Turn off MAC Address Filtering temporarily.
2. Open the program, LanScan (Free in the Mac App Store).
3. Scan your network and whatever you named your HomePod is how it will display in the program with the MAC Address included.
4. Enter the address and turn filtering back on.

I hope that helps.

Hi

I registered a call with Apple last night and was told its a new device and training has been limited. The guys were great on the phone and really tried to help. They put me through to second level support and he promised to call me back tonight with a proper answer.

For now I switched mac address filtering off on my airport, connected the homepods normally then used the airport utility to find the homepod's mac address ie:

• open airport utility
• click once on the airport device icon, it will display the edit button and a list of connected devices
• single click on the homepod in the connected devices list, and it will give you various bits of info on the related device - including the mac address.

Other than this oversight the device is working a treat, audio quality is fantastic for a smart speaker, Even my anti-technology wife is using them! Looking forward to Airplay 2 so I can put them in stereo/pair them and test them out. Hopefully Apple will now put the gas down and expand Siri's capabilities.

Jim

Thank you! I was trying for about an hour to find the right software to find the MAC address for the HomePod. the Network Scanner app through the Mac App Store was easy to use and actually worked.

Can you temporarily disable MAC address filtering, set up the device, then enable it again. FWIW take a look at Why You Shouldn’t Use MAC Address Filtering On Your Wi-Fi Router. This may not be a useful practice anyway.

tt2

They used to put MAC addressed of some devices on the box, but may no longer do so.

These are basic things Apple should think of.

If you can't find it, can you briefly disable MAC address filtering on the router, then find connected devices in the router config pages, then re-enable the MAC address filtering and add the HomePod.

Don't suppose the HomePod shows up on an iOS device under General>About>HomePod?

That linked article sort of has a point but not really. There are many legitimate reasons for using MAC addresses and Apple should realise that manyusers MUST know MAC addresses to connect to WiFi. In the case of my network we have Layer 7 rules for streaming content. A lot of content from new MAC addresses appearing on the network are blocked by default until we can se exceptions.

I purchased six Homepods and made the mistake of unboxing them and connecting all of them to power before I realised there was no way to get the MAC addresses. Now through ANOTHER (repeatable) glitch in the Apple Home app all six have been given the same default name and there is no way I can find to identify them either via the Home app (which has VERY rudimentary Homepod support and is apparently the only Apple app that "knows" anything at all about these speakers) or via the Meraki dashboard for our network. They all show up in Meraki as iOS devices named "Bedroom" (which is not the name _I_ gave them during setup). I had to ask our sysadmin to set up a special rule to allow them to connect, and now I'm sitting here blocking and unblocking them one at a time to crudely figure out which is which. Lame, Apple, really lame.

If anyone has a solution for retrieving the MAC address that does not involve painful processes like setting the Homepods up on an Android hotspot I'd sure like to know that solution.

Turn off MAC Address Filtering on your router

View your router's wireless client list and you should see HomePod with its MAC Address

Add that address to your router's whitelist and turn back on MAC Address Filtering

dlo wrote:

No MAC address on the Homepod boxes. I even tried scanning a couple tiny unlabeled barcodes with a laser scanner but they aren't MAC addresses.

No, the HomePods don't show up under General>about.

This is a real oversight - it would hardly be difficult to have the MAC address on the box, on the HomePod base plate or somewhere on the iOS device used to set it up - MAC address filtering is not an 'enterprise' solution when most home routers allow you to do so even if the majority of users don't bother. Anyhow the network is not the issue but Apple's failure to provide easy access o the MAC address is.

And I know this is "cart before the horse" but my DHCP server records all the MAC addresses and the IP addresses they give out:

Feb 10 23:59:32 hostname dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.33.245 from d4:90:9c:ab:cd:ef (HomePod) via eth0
Feb 10 23:59:32 hostname dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.33.245 to d4:90:9c:ab:cd:ef (Belladonna) via eth0

For devices where I don't know the MAC address before I turn it on, I usually have the device connect first, verify the MAC address, and then create a static IP binding to that MAC (hardware) address. Makes life easier for trying to talk to things like servers, printers and the like.

But yeah, for your type of situation where you don't know the MAC address, and you need to specify the MAC address beforehand, otherwise, the new device can't connect...you'd need to use that workaround you used. I saw a lot of good ideas! Me, I'd probably just disable the MAC address filtering, let it connect, check the logs, add the MAC address, reboot the Wi-Fi, and then let the new device connect.

Hope that helps a little?

P.S. Your post reminded me to issue a static IP for my HomePod! 😁

This is the first thing I looked for, and is a huge deal for the higher education (university/college) market, where many managed networks require the use of a MAC address to register or provision the device.