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Google home not connecting to college WiFi

Francews
Community Member

So recently I’ve gotten a Google home, it’s never been connected to anything other than my WiFi at home. Now I’m at college in an apartment and the only option is a WiFi system that requires the MAC address. I have no friends that have hotspot to connect both devices to, and my phone hotspot I can’t connect my phone to, to set up the Google. So I have to find a way to set it up without any WiFi whatsoever 

4 REPLIES 4

David_K
Diamond Product Expert
Diamond Product Expert

Chromecast, Google Home and Google Nest devices don't support these kind of Wifi systems, known as captive portals, that require you to login first to be able to access the internet.

 There are only really 2 possible solutions for this:

  1. Check with whoever manages your Wifi if they have a process to whitelist your device. They do this by allowing the unique MAC address of the device. Not all providers will be setup do this however. In addition, even this may not work on some Wifi networks, as the the administrator may have enabled a security feature called client isolation, which prevents different devices from communicating with each other (i.e. your phone communicating with your device).

  2. You mentioned you may not be able to do this but I'll explain it anyway. Although unsupported by Google, you can try to use a phone or tablet as a Wifi hotspot. However, this will then use your mobile data plan, which could be expensive for you depending on the data plan you have with your carrier. Note you will need 2 devices to set this up. 
    1. Turn on the Wifi hotspot feature on a phone or tablet. If you're not sure how to do this, refer to the manufacturer's support website.
    2. Connect a second phone or tablet to that Wifi hotspot.
    3. You can then use that second phone or tablet to setup your Google Home and connect it to the Wifi hotspot on the first phone or tablet.

If you have the option to use a wired (ethernet) connection to the network, instead of Wi-Fi, you could invest in your own router and connect your devices to that instead.

Princesss
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi everyone, 

 

Thanks for visiting Community. 

 

@David_K, we appreciate your assistance. This is a big help.

 

 @Francews, hope you were able to connect your devices to your Google Wi-Fi using the steps @David_K provided. Feel free to respond to this post if you still need help and the community would gladly assist.

 

Best,

Princess

Azarco
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey Francews,

 

I wanted to follow up and see if you are still in need of any help. Please let me know if you are still having any trouble from here, as I would be happy to take a closer look and assist you further.


Thanks,

Alex

Azarco
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey Francews,

 

We haven’t heard any updates from you. I’ll go ahead and lock this thread in 24 hours. If you still need assistance, feel free to start a new thread in the community and we’ll be happy to help.


Kind regards,

Alex