HomePod MAC address determination

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 did the same as you but left filter on and used my cell phone plus someone else's hotspot

1. Connect to another person's phone via hotspot with your Mac and iPhone

2. Scan with LanScan

3. Find your HomePod MAC

4. Disconnect from hotspot, reset HomePod

5. Manually enter MAC address and connect to WiFI

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?

Confirmed - The MAC address does show in my router client list. You will need to register device on unsecured network first to obtain.

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.

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.

Hi

They did actually phone back when they said they would but I missed the call. However they also sent an email to me with an update. In short they didn't have an elegant answer (yet) and suggested the best way for now is connect to a non mac address filtering wifi router, view the connected mac address, and then configure the filters appropriately. They also wrote that they have passed the feedback up the chain and are waiting for an answer.

I got to give them points for maintaining comms and chasing up. Wait and see now for now.

Thanks

Jim

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! 😁

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.