How can I find my Nest and Mini MAC addresses WITHOUT wifi?

[paigemetzman]

I need the MAC addresses to add the devices to my wifi network. But all of the instructions on how to get the MAC address requires wifi access. 

There must be a way to get the addresses without wifi, or else you could never set them up if your network requires MAC addresses. 

Please advise. 

[Jeff]

Hey, paigemetzman.

Thanks for reaching out to the community with your question about finding the MAC addresses for your devices. Finding a device's MAC address can be a bit confusing, especially if you're unable to get it connected to a network. We have a help article on the subject, but a lot of what you need to do to work around this depends on your router's settings. Here's the suggested workaround.

Connect to Wi-Fi that blocks unknown MAC addresses

If your Wi-Fi router has MAC address filtering enabled and only allows whitelisted devices to connect, you’ll need to add Nest product's MAC address to the whitelist. Refer to your router’s manual for instructions on how to do this.

You can often find the MAC address on the product itself. Go to the sections above for instructions. 

If your product doesn’t have the MAC address printed on it:

1. Temporarily disable MAC address filtering. Refer to your router’s manual for instructions on how to do this.
2. Continue setup with the app to connect your Nest product.

If you are unable to do these steps or they don't work for you, please let me know and we can investigate other options for you. Thanks.

[paigemetzman]

I cannot change my routers settings as the internet is managed by the apartment building. I have access to it, but don’t control the settings. And yeah, the MAC address isn’t printed on the device itself or this wouldn’t be an issue. 

[Jeff]

Hey, paigemetzman.

Let me consult with an internal team to see if there's a way to pull the MAC address off of these devices without having an active connection. I'm personally not aware of a method, but I will escalate this and see what I can find out.

Thanks.

[Jeff]

Hi, paigemetzman.

I don't know if you were able to figure out how to get the MAC address from these devices, but I do have one more suggested workaround to pull this info. Can you create a mobile hotspot with your mobile phone? I know that's not available on all plans, but if you are able to do so, you should be able to get your devices to connect there long enough to discover MAC addresses. If that's something you're unable to do, please let me know.

Thanks.

[paigemetzman]

I finally did figure out how to fix this frustrating issue, so I’ll share it here in hopes it helps someone else. 

Creating a hot spot is somehow the advice listed on every forum about this issue. It doesn’t work- not in the way you’re suggesting at least. A hot spot creates a wifi network for devices *other than the phone itself.* And to set up the devices, the phone and the device need to be connected to the same wifi. But the phone can’t connect to its own hot spot! So that does not work. 

I finally connected the devices by using a second phone. So my friend created a hot spot that I then connected my phone to. Once I was connected to that hot spot, I opened the Google Home app and went through the setup process. To get the MAC address, you have to wait until precisely the right step. If you do it too late or early, you’ll have to factory reset the device and start the process over. When you get to the screen asking what network the device should connect to, hit the three dots *before* selecting a network. At that time and that time only, an option for “show MAC address” will appear. Once you have the address, you can add it to the router’s white list and finally connect the device to your actual internet connection. 

I hope this helps someone. 

[Jeff]

Hey, paigemetzman.

That's quite clever and very helpful. Thanks so much for coming back and updating us with how you worked this out! I'll pass the solution onto our internal team so they can advise others and obviously this thread will be archived here for people searching for a solution. As we have our answer here, I'm going to go ahead and close the thread, but if you need anything else, please feel free to open a new thread.

Thanks again! I'm so glad you're able to get things working for you.